Products & product marketing:bubble up cola - Essay Example

The two cola products that currently retain the highest market share in the United States and Mexico is Coca-Cola and Pepsi. Both hold 73 percent of the market in the U.S.and 82 percent in Mexico.Because of their innovative advertising and product concepts, other cola products have had a difficult time outperforming these soft drink giants. However, this is largely due to the lack of innovative product varieties available from other cola producers and limited advertising budgets. This proposal identifies a new type of soft drink, Bubble Up Cola, that allows consumers to create their own flavors with just a drop of a tablet fortified with unique flavor varieties.

There is a need in the mass market, this being youthful to older demographics, for innovation in cola variety. Pepsi has been able to differentiate its cola products using “fashion-conscious, tech-forward, and celebrity focused” advertising in an attempt to outperform its largest rival cola brand (Reppo & Yan, 2010, p.8). Pepsi and Coca-Cola can no longer differentiate through flavor and they must resort to using celebrities and social media outlets to change their images or position them differently from their traditional flavor positioning.

This has given a unique opportunity for Bubble Up Cola to position on taste sensation and quality in an effort to gain mass market appeal. Aging consumers have a need to be recognized as hip and youthful and they are providing new market opportunities for cola brands if they can target properly (Stroud, 2009). Youths also have significant brand recall on major brands when shown the logo of well-known, well-established brands (Valkenburg, 2004). This means they find connection with logo presentation and it is commonly understood that youth attitudes and sentiment have influence in parental buying behavior.

Bubble Up Cola will provide flavored tablets that allow all mass market consumers to insert their own flavors into a carbonated drink bottle that give them sensations of authority over variety and, with clever advertising, will appeal to the aging consumer with a need for trendy lifestyle approaches. This will be a mass market campaign designed to deliver newness and innovation where large-scale competitors are no longer able to capitalize on ingenuity in product variety. The Market Environment The cola market expects a growth rate of between six and seven percent in the coming decade in the U.S. (Reppo & Yan).

Mexico is also part of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and thus it provides excellent opportunity for distribution of this new product. The high market share of the main competitors in Mexico is a mass market philosophy that appeals to all age demographics and socio-cultural backgrounds (and lifestyles). The opportunities to gain a brand reputation, and hopefully brand preference, are virtually unlimited with a mass market promotional strategy. In 2003, Pepsi and Coke combined earned $43 billion with mass market audiences (Reppo & Yan).

Strategies and Distribution New media formats provide excellent opportunities for gaining brand reputation if Bubble Up can target the appropriate usership. It is proposed that Facebook, YouTube, and other low cost marketing mediums can be utilized to gain this attention using clever advertising that appeals to multiple demographics. For the older consumer, illustrations of aging consumers enjoying the freedom and flexibility of Bubble Up and its innovative taste sensation can be linked with sites such as AARP and other lifestyle-oriented sites that cater to the older consumer.

The goal is to show the product as hip and unique and this social media forum will grab their attention and help them identify with Bubble Up as an up-and-coming cola product. Youth sites and those appealing to specific consumer lifestyles will be developed once marketing research has been conducted that gains more knowledge about their online