No more ‘Bliss’leri...

For its new businesses, Bisleri will have to do aggressive advertising
It was almost 15 years ago when Ramesh Chauhan, Chairman, Bisleri international Pvt. Ltd. sold his well-established brands including Thums-up, Limca and Maaza (a part of Parle Group then) to the Coca-Cola Company. It was a move that Chauhan himself regrets, but he honestly names it a necessity at that point of time for the company.

Cut to the present, and Chauhan seems to be in aggressive expansion mode yet again, since he is set to launch a series of beverages including health drinks and flavoured water (by the end of this year). Certainly a diversification is knocking on the company’s door after a long time. But the million dollar question is will it work this time? “We are very much interested in entering the market of health drinks; it has an enormous potential to grow in the country,” Chauhan shares with B&E. No doubt, Bisleri is the clear market leader in the bottled water industry in India with more than 60% of the market share in the organised market. But this alone won’t promise him success in his new venture. Chauhan will have to go for a head-on competition with brands like Dabur Real, Tropicana & Gatorade (Co), Minute Maid (from Coca-Cola), Appy Fizz and Frooti. However, to its credit, there is a huge difference between the funds available to Bisleri today and in 1993. But Tushar Bhattacharya, Senior Economist, FICCI states, “If Chauhan wants to indeed be successful in these new markets that he is planning to enter, he will have to take the route of massive advertising and sales promotion.” The catch is that Bisleri is not exactly known as a great advertiser, which is attributed by analysts as possible complacency due to overwhelming market leadership.

No doubt, the company has been working on this venture for almost three years. But then to survive in today’s competitive world, Bisleri will have to develop strong expertise in branding for these new products. Building new brands in this hugely competitive drinks market will be tough, so ideally, Bisleri should be going for a brand extension; which makes it all the more important for this leopard to change its spots and ramp up its advertising budgets significantly.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative
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