Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Sunfill : RIP (2001-2005)

Brand : Sunfill
Company: Coca Cola

Brand Count : 191


Sunfill was Coca Cola's foray into the Soft Drink Concentrate market in India. Globally it was the company's first foray into the powder concentrate segment. This good product died after 4 years primarily because the company did not consider worthwhile to focus on marketing this product.
Sunfill was introduced in 2001 and Coca Cola intended to take on Rasna in the Rs 180 crore soft drinks concentrate market in India. Rasna was dominating the market with a share of over 85%.
Sunfill was a powder soft drink concentrate . Powder concentrate occupy85% of the total soft drinks concentrate market. Sunfill came in three variants : Regular,Anand and Tarang.

Sunfill differentiated from Rasna by taking the convenience route. The concentrate had added sugar in it so to make the drink was easy for the consumer. While other concentrates, sugar need to be added hence was cumbersome for the consumer. The taste of Sunfill was also better compared to other brands ( personal opinion). The brand also innovated in packaging by coming out with single serve packs and also multi serve pillow packs.
The biggest challenge for any FMCG/SDC products was distribution. Sunfill found an innovative method to reach the market. It had alliances with other FMCG firms in reaching the market. The brand had its own channel + third party alliance (Hybrid network) to ensure that the brand is available in all stores.
But somehow the product failed in the market. The issue was with regard to distribution, product and the promotion.
The product had some quality issues. In my personal experience, some of the packs had very bad quality concentrate . At one point of time, the product was not available in the stores. The issue in promotion was regarding the positioning. When Sunfill came into the market, Rasna countered Sunfill with its own range of powder concentrate with added sugar.Hence the differentiation became negated for Sunfill. The promotion investment for Sunfill was not adequate to counter the huge brand equity that Rasna enjoyed. I have a feeling that Sunfill was a half hearted effort from the company.That was reflected in the promotions for the product which ultimately lead to the death of a high potential brand

I still feel that the company did not do justice to the brand which had a potential to make it big in the SDC market but the plug was pulled on Sunfill in 2005.

Related brands

Rasna

Source: Agencyfaqs,businessline,magindia

1 comment:

  1. just by personal observation, it seems that the concentrated drinks market has been killed off by soft drinks...i dont think rasna is doing all that great either, but then again i dont have any numbers with me...any takes on why this has happend?

    ReplyDelete

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