It seems that the war between Coke and Pepsi in every single area is going to last forever!
COCA-COLA AND BODY ARMOR'S HANDSHAKING
 |
| (thecoca-colacompany.com) |
The Coca-Cola Company, in August, 14th, 2018, has announced its acquisition of a minority stake toward BodyAmor, a sport drink brand which is backed up by basketball superstar Kobe Bryant. This acquisition let Coca-Cola be the second biggest investor of BodyAmor and also gives BodyAmor access to the distribution network of Coca-Cola. This movement of Coke is considered the huge step to challenge PepsiCo in competitive sport drink market.
Looking back at the sport beverage industry big picture in recent years, Pepsi is sustainably holding its market leader position with more than 70% market share, followed by Coke in the 2nd place with around 20% and BodyArmor in the 3rd place.
BodyArmor is just a newborn baby, compared to 2 big old giants Coke and Pepsi. It was founded in 2011 by Mike Repole, who is also behind Vitaminwater and Smartwater. It has taken the back up of Kobe Bryant, who became the 3rd shared holder in 2013 and was endorsed by many professional athletes, including James Harden, Mike Trout, Dustin Johnson, Andrew Luck and Skylar Diggins-Smith. That makes a huge advantage for BodyAmor in building its brand image as a source of inspiration for people who love sports
(source: pinterest)
Body Amor is also positioned as a healthier alternative to traditional sport beverages since it is coconut-water based with potassium, electrolytes, and vitamins. It contains no artificial colors and doesn’t use high fructose corn syrup to make sweetener as Coca-Cola’s Powerade and Pepsi's Gatorade. As the trend of consumer nowadays is searching for “natural ingredients and clear-origin" product, BodyAmor seems to go on the right track with its strategy.
Talking about the deal with Coke, Body Armor CEO Mike Repole said:
“BODYARMOR is revolutionizing the beverage industry by providing the hydration that more and more of today’s athletes want and need. We are confident that this agreement gives us the best opportunity to significantly accelerate our mission to make BODYARMOR the world’s best premium sports performance and hydration brand. This is thanks to the strength and scale of Coca-Cola’s newly refranchised and energized bottling system in North America, as well as longer-term opportunities for international growth.
…….
I am extremely excited about this agreement because the Coca-Cola system has an amazing track record of growing explosive brands that consumers love and allowing entrepreneurial startups like BodyArmor to continue to be independent and focused on achieving the aggressive growth goals that we set out to achieve when we launched this amazing brand in 2011"
The advantage of accessing Coca-Coca distribution infrastructure is undeniably huge, especially on an international scale. In particular, Coke will help BodyArmor to step into one of the largest markets in the world - China, and many other emerging markets including Southeast Asia, Indian, and so on. In those culture-intense markets, with a deep understanding of local culture and the strong distribution network of Coke, Body Armor seems to stand a higher chance to be successful.
AND PEPSI FIGHTS BACK
(Source: money.cnn.com)
The handshake between Coca-Cola and BodyArmor obviously a threat to Gatorade’s market share. Before, PepsiCo with Gatorade is the market leader, which has held nearly $8 billion USD of sport drink industry in past decades (Euromonitor International). However, last year, according to Euromonitor, the sales of Gatorade in US is declining 0.5% last year to $5.9 billion, showing that this dominant brand is gradually losing its market share. It is obvious that Pepsi has to take action. Understanding the new trend of consumers which is moving consumption to healthy food and drink, just in June 2018, for the first time in its history, Pepsi has launched its “sugar-free" sport drink, which called Gatorade-zero to compete directly with Powerade-zero of Coke. And it's still not the end of the war. In the last August 2018, PepsiCo also announced to buy the household drink-maker machine SodaStream for 3.2 billion USD, in a shift to health-conscious drink market. SodaStream CEO Daniel Birnbaum said that the deal marked a "validation of our mission to bring healthy, convenient and environmentally friendly beverage solutions to consumers around the world." This deal is planned to close in January 2019.
(Sources:thedrinksbusiness.com)
After that, Pepsi and Gatorade are also expected to release some new amazing products, which may including a customized sports drink.
Let's see how the war is going on!
- Mai Do Quynh-
Commentaires
Enregistrer un commentaire