A Cool Challenge

IN the good ol' days you could play ball on the beach and drink 'The Refreshing Cola'. Or ride mobikes and 'Taste the Thunder'. But since Coca-Cola took over the Thums Up brand in October 1993, life's never been the same. In an assertion of sorts, the brand's loyal drinker last year demanded his cola with the 'I want my Thunder' tag line. From mobiking down a rough road to quench his selective thirst with Thums Up, the old faithful bungee jumped all the way down a cliff. Wind surfing, sky-diving, snow-boarding and parasailing graphics enhanced the new, trendy cans. Sales rose by 50 per cent over the past three years.

 Yes, that's what Coca-Cola claims, belying the popular impression that the company has been trying its damnedest to kill off Thums Up, because it stood in the way of a dominant marketshare for Coke. In fact, in preparation for summer '97, Coca-Cola is giving added punch to the brand Ramesh Chauhan created. Coming up is a high-voltage ad and promotion package. The brand's imagery continues to become increasingly daring and international in flavour, aiming to rope in younger, teen consumers. This year the diehard drinker is heli-jumping to grab his fave drink in the oven-fresh commercial shot in Australia. And the bungee jumper of yesteryear is diving underwater for his refreshment bottle in a twin film.

In Mumbai, the consumer promotion programme titled 'Thums Up Thunderblast, Go Get Your Thunder' has already started and will run through April. Besides Thunder T-shirts, Thundercaps, Thunder Glasses and Thunder stickers, 100 lucky winners are going to get the 350 cc Bullet 'Machismo' mobike. "One of the most powerful icons of masculinity in India," as Jimmy Mogal, senior manager, external and corporate affairs, Coca-Cola India, describes it, has already heard from about 80,000 contenders in the first nine days of the programme. The 20-year-old red and white logo has been revamped. A strong dash of blue—the colour that was introduced in all Thums Up imagery last year—is added. A strong streak of blue speedlines rush through the new logo. Says Mogal: "A result of painstaking research, (shortlisted from an initial 25 designs) the speedlines add a powerful element of speed and adventure to reinforce the winning, youthful, contemporary image." Arch-rival Pepsi, of course, claims otherwise. It says that globally, Pepsi's unveiling a newlook logo which aims to appropriate blue as the Pepsi colour. So, Thums Up going blue is Coca-Cola India's attempt to steal a march on Pepsi.

The new Thums Up logo homes most prominently on the resurrected 500-ml pack size, the erstwhile Maha Cola which had been allowed to languish for some years. This old squat, fuddy-duddy 'buddy' pack has metamorphosed into a tall, lean and mean, easy-to-grip 'Thunderpack'. Its crown cap is replaced by a reusable wing lock closure. The 500 ml pack is now the perfect mini option to the larger, multi-serve sizes, says Coca-Cola India. The price continues to hold at Rs 10 a bottle.

Even though the 300 ml bottle is the most popularly consumed pack, it's a considerable expense for bottlers to replace millions of bottles immediately. Explains Mogal: "The 300 ml bottles and other packs will eventually carry this logo when the old batches are replaced." An opportunity to prominently display and remind the consumer of the 500 ml pack size option. The company is sure sales will be going up further.

That the brand has enjoyed considerable investment through these few years is evident. A correlation between number of pack sizes and sales volumes has been observed the world over. The company, therefore, went on to enhance the Thums Up range. At first 250 ml bottles were upgraded to 300 ml. Consequently, one-litre bottles and one-way convenience packs like the 1.5-litre Pet bottles and 330 ml cans were brought in. Already 30 per cent more 500 ml bottles have been put into the market. Since 1994, ad and sales promotion budgets have doubled every year over the previous one. The brand has been gradually aligned to the Coca-Cola Company brands worldwide. Now it is all geared up to take on competition. Industry observers believe that Coca Cola India is using Thums Up to keep Pepsi marketers too busy to pay enough attention to the Coke threat, the classic 'flanking attack' one reads of in marketing textbooks. But won't the powerful masculine, tread-on-unchartered-path imagery scare away the faint-hearted? "No," says Mogal, "for Thums Up is intelligently masculine".