MARKET ANALYSIS OF PEPSI ATOM BRAND FAILURE

A research report on reasons for Pepsi Atom brand failure

with their self-proposed solutions

Overview Demerits in the product Brand ambassador and advertising Product projected as a surrogate rather

than something new Poor business strategy by PepsiCo Product’s strong rival:- Thumbs Up

Demerits in the product

Taste – According to the people reviews, Indian people didn’t like the product taste. Pepsi Atom failed against its expectation of having a strong taste. It tasted more like a cinnamon cola, and let’s just say the two don’t blend. Indian consumers mostly consume soft drinks with their food or when they are hungry. The product did not meet the expectation.

Packaging: – The design of the PET bottle was also not very eye catchy or innovative. The design of the bottle looks very old. Pepsi is known for its youth appealing designs but it failed in its packaging with Pepsi Atom.

Brand ambassador and advertising

Ambassador- Hindi film Kai Po Che actor Sushant Singh Rajput has been appeared as the brand ambassador for Pepsi Atom. Just before the product launch, the actor’s film was a hit and successful,so the company was confident in showing him as the “Youth Icon.”But the product’s rival brand ambassador was Salman Khan who is much more famous and recognizable among youths in India and so Sushant Singh Rajput couldn’t cope up with the rival product’s ambassador image.

Advertising- The Atom ad shows a macho man getting slapped by a woman after he mistook her husband for a thief and then the smart guy comes and offers him Atom.

Ad executives should understand that slapping itself is a violent physical action and gives the product a degraded value and promotes violence prone culture. A lot of kids see such ads and might just get pushed the wrong way.

Product projected as a surrogate rather than something new

“ Somehow, every time I see the @ Pepsi Atom ad , I’m reminded of Thumbs Up,”

tweeted on 4 may,2013 by Ashok Lalla, Global head of major digital software marketing at Infosys

This statement is one of the many opinions how the brand Pepsi Atom projects its image before people.

Rather than appearing as a brand new product it is seen as a surrogate for the brand Thumbs Up owned by Coca-Cola.

Even the sense of advertisement and the tag lines were also similar to that of Thumbs Up.the tag was also similar to its rival product. Pepsi Atom’s tag line was ‘ Piyo Josh Mein, Jiyo Hosh Mein’ while Thumbs Up‘s tag line was ‘ Aaj kuch toofani karte hain ’.

Poor business strategy by PepsiCo

Pepsi being an innovative brand should have come up with a product which is more youth appealing. As in today’s time people are getting health conscious and love to consume which is healthy. Keeping this in mind they could have come up with a new product with the combination of cola and some energy ingredients making it a real energy drink rather than giving the mixture of cinnamon in cola which has become an epic disaster.

Or instead of wasting its time effort and money on doing something different, it was better off than what is already there and solidly established in the market. There are many more flavours of PepsiCo around the globe, which they can launch in India like 27 varieties of Lipton Tea Beverages for examples ---Lipton Green Tea, Lipton Iced Tea , Lipton Peach Ice Tea, Lipton Original Green Tea, Lipton Lemon Ice Tea , Lipton Raspberry Ice Tea , Lipton Mango Ice Tea, Lipton Red Ice Tea, Lipton Green Ice Tea and fruit derived carbonated soft drinks example ---18 Izze products

Product’s strong rival:- Thumbs Up

Thumbs Up is already a strongly stabilized product in india. It is the first preferred cola brand in India which outsells even Coca-Cola and Pepsi. Thumbs Up is too well established in the Rs 14,000-crore soft drinks market with a 15% share. People have already been well familiarized and associated with the product.

May be this is due to the fact that Thumbs Up is considered as a ‘local’ product because it was a local brand created by the Parle Agro and so its taste and image blends with Indian people so easily. For example- biryani with Thumbs Up is almost a staple

diet in Andhra Pradesh. It has the strongest carbonation among all the beverages. Indians like strong taste and rich cuisine. Thumbs Up goes perfectly well with spicy food.

As Coca-Cola managed to gain market share by discounting the price of its bottles and gained an advantage of Pepsi’s disaster product Pepsi Atom- a more aggressive failure of Pepsi.