Coca-Cola
Edengene, 2008
Brand Strategy for Growth
Summary
In 2008, Coca-Cola EU Group recognised it had a challenge with growing the POWERADE® business in Europe. Slowing sports drink category growth, poor consumer understanding of sports drinks, pressure from cheaper supermarket brands and poor differentiation from the category leader, PepsiCo’s Gatorade and other local brands, combined to form a problematic situation. Further complication came from the variation in the precise situation and the strategies employed by individual country teams.
Whilst POWERADE® had been enjoying reasonable volume growth in recent years, it remained an undifferentiated number two in key European markets and was growing off a relatively small base. Management’s ambitious targets were unlikely to be met by continuing with a business as usual strategy.
Coca Cola saw an opportunity to take the category leadership position and triple the size of the POWERADE® business. Developing a challenger brand strategy could allow it to differentiate POWERADE® and achieve this ambitious objective. The big question was, how best to do that?
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