Frooti – Innovative Packing Leads to Success

Frooti was the first beverage product (either Cola drink or Fruit Juice category) in India that was launched with new innovative packing called TetraPack. It was Launched in 1984  by Parle group and it still holds a dominant position in the Rs300 crore fruit juice market. Because of its unique packing and royal mango taste, Frooti has carved out a niche for itself over these years. Initially the drink was positioned as a kids drink. It was perceived as a healthy fruit drink with no additives that will retain its taste and quality. Thus, when cola ginats came back to India again in 1992, it became the healthy alternative to Cola drinks. Tetrapack enhanced the shelf life of what is generally considered as a perishable product.

With success came great competitions as there was a lot of new launches in the fruit juice market. Players like Godrej with Jumpin, kissan etc came into the market but nobody can dislodge Frooti from its position. For over a 7 years, Frooti was positioned as a mango drink that is “Fresh-n-juicy”. The product have tried to create excitement in the market through a series of new variants and packing. But with dawn of new millennium the brand was facing stagnated sales. The company tried to provide variety to customer withy orange and pineapple variant but both the failed to do so. Then came the experiment with packaging. Worried by the stagnating sales, Parle tried to reposition the brand to appeal to youth aged between 16-21. The positioning changed to be more fun based. The package also changed. The old green color of the bottle changed to more bright mango color with lot of graphics added to it. The YO! Frooti variant came with a slim paper can aimed at the college going youth.

One of the most famous marketing campaigns India have witnessed took place during the repositioning. The campaign is the famous “Digen Verma” campaign. This campaign was considered as one of the most successful teaser campaigns in India. The campaign lasted for 15 days started in February 2001. The campaign was about a faceless person Digen Verma. There were posters and outdoors all across the markets that had messages like “ Who is Digen verma” “ Digen Verma was here” etc. This created lot of excitement in the market and “Digen Verma “became the most talked about faceless name at that time. The campaign was executed by Everest communication. But the campaign was not followed up and the hype was not translated to long term brand building.