Coca-Cola gives its Mother a second chance

COCA-COLA is becoming increasingly desperate to crack the booming energy drinks market, with the company announcing the relaunch of its energy drink Mother after a spectacular flop last year.

Next month, a multimillion-dollar marketing campaign will signal the return of Mother and the company's fifth attempt to establish a beachhead in a market dominated by V and Red Bull.

Since 2001, Coke has released a number of products - Lift Plus, Burn and Recharge by Sprite - all of which failed.

Early last year, ads featuring a cast of wide-eyed animals proclaiming Mother's energy-boosting properties, underscored with the line "100 per cent Natural", positioned the drink, which contained a potent Amazonian berry, acai, as an all-natural alternative to the caffeine- and taurine-loaded rivals.

But the $15 million marketing campaign, including two large sampling campaigns and heavy discounting in stores, failed to lift sales. At its peak, Coca-Cola's share of the energy drinks market, which IBIS World analysts put at $325 millionin 2007, stood at 6.3 per cent. Since then, sales have dwindled prompting Coke to rerelease the brand.

The campaign by one of its agencies, Publicis Mojo, failed because the core target market of 18- to 24-year-old males was not looking for a "natural high" but a "chemical one", according to sources. Those who tried it didn't come back largely because of the taste. "It [the drink] lacked the efficacy of potency and that's exactly what the market wants in these drinks," one source close to Coke said.

Yesterday, Coke put out a short statement admitting it had got it wrong - unusual for a company that rarely, if ever, acknowledges defeat. "It will taste nothing like the old one and will deliver double the energy kick, making it the most potent energy drink in Australia," it said.

Even the top of the can will be emblazoned with: "Tastes nothing like the old one."

The sources said Coke will not step away from a market that has grown by 62 per cent in the three years to 2007.

But commentators are far from confident it can succeed. Red Bull and V have almost 90 per cent of the market.

Beverage analyst for IBIS World, Audrey Riddell, said: "Because it's an innovative product, the first mover advantage is important and because they [Red Bull and V] were able to come in with appropriate marketing early on in the piece, they've made it difficult for others to come in. Coke will be playing catch-up."

Broking house UBS tempered advice to investors in Coca-Cola's Australian bottler, Coca-Cola Amatil: "CCL [Coca-Cola Amatil] hopes to recover with improved sales but we are cautious on the company's ability to succeed against Red Bull and V."

Coke is not alone. Foster's Torque bombed and its successor, Battery, is making little headway.

Coca-Cola confirmed the task of relaunching Mother had shifted from Mojo to another of its rostered agencies, Smart, which last year merged with an established Coke agency, Kindred, which had worked on its most successful launch, Coca-Cola Zero.

http://business.smh.com.au/cocacola-gives-its-mother-a-second-chance-20080618-2svo.html