Perceptual map revealing concentrations and opportunities in the market

It is interesting to build a perceptual map in order to position the brands and allow the consumers and marketers to understand the market composition. As defined above, we decided to create the map according to the brand position either as an Energy drink or a Performance drink and either they target sport or healthy position. This axis takes under consideration various factors: sponsorship; communication; website content; distribution points; target.

Being clearer, the more the brands get close to the top of the axis, Sport oriented, means that they are deeply promoting drinks towards performance sports and athletes whereas Healthy oriented where brands tend to promote healthy way of life towards a more common target (not only athletes).

Also, we added a third dimension, the brand size in term of market shares and brand recognition. This dimension allows to analyse how complex is the market sides for the close competitors and for the new entrants if some wants to position their brand in one side of the map.

Therefore, we analysed a large set of brands playing into the sports drinks or, drinks with value added for the organism following an idea to improve people conditions. This analysis only shows a scope of the French market, and thus list drinks that are distributed in France only.

As we can noticed, there is two concentrations close to the top of the map. One for the energy drinks and at the opposite for the performance drinks. Several actors are targeting those extremes that reveal a well-positioned brand which is very important for the brands success in their respective markets. RedBull, Dark Dog and Monster share the highly positioned brands into the energy drinks deeply integrated into the sports world. As we know and presented in other articles, RedBull, Dark Dog and Monster represent huge actors, investing a large part of their resources into the creation and sponsorship of sports events, the promotion of athletes and teams, often with extreme sports. This side of the market is highly competitive, and the brand success rely increasingly, since years, over large marketing investment.

On the other side, we can see another hub shared by Powerade, Isostar and Gatorade. They respectively target different sports but the step to tackle down the neighbour’s sport is pretty close. In fact, those major brands offering performance drinks are fighting to increase their market shares and it has to be through the improvement of their brand association to sports. Powerade, historical player into the soccer world, Isostar, an expert acting towards running and cycling sports, and finally Gatorade, coming from United States, and thus sponsoring American sports such as football, basketball, hockey but also trying to enter the cycling world. As a result, it is clear that the gap is close between those drinks position and that there is no doubt about the competition that is rising between them to extend their “sport portfolio” in their marketing strategy.

At the opposite, towards the healthier side of the map, it exists fewer actors: Vitamin Water, Scheckter’s Organic and Virtue water position at different places. Promoting their great composition with much less chemical recipe compared to the sport-oriented drink and pushing forward the improvement of the body condition by drinking their products. Those brands followed the recent global trend in developed countries which express an increasing need for healthier and transparent composition of the alimentation goods. Therefore, it exists some new entrants that try to position and earn shares in this fresh demanded market, but in fact there is actually a few actors that are nationally present and known as seen on the map.

After this analysis, we can come to a visual conclusion thanks to the perceptual map that allow us to see some concentrations and some cleared spaces that reveals opportunities for current brands with lower shares or new entrants. Those places appear in doted pink on the right and left bottom corners. Interesting statement to realised that success can be found by positioning brand either as an energy drink promoting and investing the healthy spirit or as a performance drink more position as an expert in the natural components to target consumers looking for non-chemical alternative compared to the sports-oriented brands which are not focus on those aspects.

Yoann Quardel