Thums Up Soft Drink Brand Analysis

Launched in India by Parle Agro Pvt. Ltd. Now owned by Coca-Cola. Until leaving India in 1977, Coca Cola was the nation’s leading soft drink. It was around that time that the Chauhan brothers launched Thums Up, Parle’s flagship cola drink. The “Tough Man’s Cola” quickly went on to become a nationwide success, dominating smaller players like Campa Cola, Double Seven and Double Cola for over a decade. But all that changed in 1993 – for that was when Coca Cola re-entered the Indian market and Pepsi launched here too.
Background:

Thums Up is a carbonated soft drink (cola) admired and biggest selling brand in India, where it’s valiant, red thumbs up logo is widespread.

Earlier the logo of Thums Up was a red ‘thumbs up’ gesture of hand with one-sided white sans-serif typography. This would later be tailored and modified by Coca-Cola with giving some blue strokes and a more advance and modern-style. The main motive behind changing the logo was to lessen the dominance of red colour in the signage.
Brand Identity of Thums Up:

Iconic, victory, celebration, proactive
Happiness, brave, excitements
Thums Up, Red color, logo
Macho, Masculine, adventurous, cool
Masculine, risky, courageous
Macho, refreshing, adventurous, joyfuluntitled

Stage at Product Life Cycle:
Thums Up has seen all the stages of product life cycle except decline stage, starting from introduction. When the Brand was doing well, it was taken away from the market because it was giving stiff competition to Coca-cola but Coke had to bring out the brand again to attack all the promotional policy of Pepsi and it was introduced once again.

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If we talk about current scenario, thums Up is at its Maturity stage. It has grown like anything, has been successful in attracting more and more number of customers and now it has a huge market share. The brand has been successful in capturing the minds of the consumers. Now, all the communication policies of the brand is all about informing consumers that the brand is in the market and doing well. The objective of the communication policy of the brand is to remind people about the strength and status of the brand
SWOT Analysis:
Weakness

Negative Publicity
Decline in cash for operating costs
No autonomy

Strength

Strong brand image
Good marketing tools
Strong distribution channels
Different taste
Brand loyalty
Reasonable price

Threat

Cut- throat competition
New entrants
Government regulations
Economic instability
Health Issues
Market instability

Opportunity

Growing Market
Acquisitions
Innovation
Overtake competitors
Creative marketing tools

Market Scenario:
Thums Up has enjoyed a near monopoly with a much stronger market share often beating its other rivals like Camp cola, Double seven and Dukes, but there were many small regional players who had their own market. It was one of the major advertisers throughout the 1980s. In the mid-80’s it had a brief threat from a newcomer Double Cola which suddenly disappeared within a few years.
Pepsi was the first company to come to India In 1990, when the Indian government allowed the market to multinational companies… Thums Up went up against the worldwide giant for a strong ambush with neither side giving any quarter. When Pepsi had starred with famous bollywood actress like Juhi Chawla, to frustrate the Indian brand, Thums Up focussed on cricket sponsorship.
Things became even more complicated when Coca-cola re-entered India after its absence from 1977 to 1993. Now the fight became a three-way battle.
But Things got changed post liberalization, when Thums Up was facing unbendable and stiff competition from coke and Pepsi both. But After all this happening, owners of Parle Agro, finally sold Thums Up to Coca-Cola.
Relaunch of the product:
When Thums UP was sold off to Coca-Cola, it in fact tried to kill Thums Up, but later on they sensed that Pepsi would be more benefitted than Coke if they withdrew Thums Up from the market and Coke decided to use Thums Up against Pepsi to thwart the brand. By this time, Coca-cola had about 60.5% share in the Indian soft-drink market but if they would have withdrawn Thums Up from the market the market share would have remained 28.72% only. Hence it once again launched Thums Up brand targeting the 30 to 45 year olds.
In today’s scenario, amongst all the carbonated drinks Coca-cola occupies about 58% market share in India in which Thums-up is the premier selling brand with a market share of about 15% of the total CSD market where as Pepsi is the second brand with 36%.
Communication strategy after Re-launch–
After entering again into the market the brand was re-positioned as a “manly” drink, stressing on its strong and bitter taste qualities. Thums Up kick-started an forceful and aggressive campaigns directly targeting Pepsi’s TV ads, showcasing the strength of the drink in the hope that the representation of an “adult” drink would attract more young consumers. “Grow up to Thums Up” was a triumphant and amazing campaign done by Thums Up and because of this campaign the market share of the brand soared. The brand became unbreakable and resilient
Positioning:
Earlier Thums up was positioned as a refreshing cold drink, with having slogans such as Great and Happy Days are here Again” but after this it was around post-1996 that the brand decided to move towards a more idiosyncratic, manly positioning.
Having all odds Thums Up has enjoyed a market share of around 30% at the time, but Coca-Cola has always focused all its money and resources on promoting the Coke brand.
The latest thums up 2010 ad has an attitude that is “I will do anything for Thunder” which shows the enthusiasm and adventurous nature of males.
The different types of positioning opted by the brand in several times are as follows:

Time duration
Brand positioning
Tag line
1977-1980

Joy, Refreshment, Happiness
Happy days are here again
1981-1987
Masculine
I am the thunder.
1988-1992
Masculine
Taste the thunder
19993-1995
Back out from the market
1995-2006
Confidence, masculine, Adventurous
Taste the thunder
2006 onwards
Confidence, Masculine, cheerful
Taste the thunder
Current Marketing plan
Even after 13 years, Thums up is sold more than Pepsi and Coke. The brand has refused to die because of its strongness and attitude involved in it. The brand personifies victory, achievement and celebration. Thums Up is our very own Indian brand. The brand is very popular amongst Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Gujarat, UP and Karnataka where Andhra contributes 30% of the total sales.
Coke has always promoted Thums Up half heartedly but even after all mess up, the brand has stood strong and everlasting . May be it is on the part of consumers that they are not willing to let go the brand. This brand has got an iconic status. It is a classic case where the customers have the ownership of the brand.
If Coke would have promoted the brand in most efficient manner, Pepsi did not have a chance to enter and compete in Indian cola market. Coke could have ruled and became the market leader in India only with Thums Up.
Now, Coke is trying to have a separate market for Thums Up. Coke is trying to play the regional game through which in those areas where sales of coke is strong, Thums Up is withdrawn slowly.
Thums Up Launches New Ad Campaign – Yeh Toofan
This summer, Thums Up, one of India’s most iconic and the largest soft drink brand, is all set to storm fans with a new ‘Taste the Thunder’ communication initiative- ‘Yeh Toofan’. In the latest campaign, Bollywood Super Star and Thums Up brand Ambassador, Akshay Kumar reminiscences about the several thunder packed action stunts for his favorite bottle of Thums Up. The communication takes the ‘I will do Anything for my thunder’ attitude to the next level, where Akshay is seen, back in thick of action, performing some adrenalin pumping action such as crashing through the window of an exploding high rise, snatching a Thums Up bottle from jaws of a vicious alligator, taking on a mob of angry gangsters to swimming through strong rapids. This campaign first got previewed to the Thums Up fans on Facebook and then releases on mass media channels.
Internet Marketing done By Thums Up:
Honestly, Thums Up is a brand does not use the power of internet marketing. Their main motive is to reach out mass public by using mass media tools of promotion. They have focussed more on TVCs and OOH media. In the field of internet marketing, I could find only following steps taken by the brand:
All the ads of the company are uploaded on YouTube.
They are using social media as in Facebook for awareness but the extent is very low.
They are having Search Engine Optimisation to an extent because while searching for data related to Thums Up, I was getting the links related to Thums Up but still a lot can be done in this field.
All the latest updates about the brand come on internet on regular basis
There is no separate website of the brand. It comes under Coca-Cola as a sub brand.
What can be done-?
Now, as we can see that the company does not promote itself on internet and it feels also that there is no use of it. Frankly speaking thums Up is doing great in the market but in this situation of cut-throat competition, a lot can be done on internet to create buzz and to get competitive advantage. As we all agree that this age has become “word of fingers” instead of “word of mouth”, Thums up as a big brand should utilise the power of internet in current scenario.
Developing their own website: Thums Up should have its own website, where they can separately calculate the hits by using web analytics. On their website, they can demonstrate their latest ads, new packaging, history of the brand and all related information can be found on that website only.
Using Social Media: Thums Up being a youth product, must use social media as one of their promotional tool. They can have application related to the brand; they can have games related to the brand. One idea can be that they develop a quiz related to the latest updates of Thums Up and they offer prizes to the winner.
Search Engine Optimisation: Thums Up uses this technique as promotion tools but not in an effective way. When I was looking for the Internet marketing plan of Thums Up, I was getting every data related to Thumbs Up, which was very irritating. So, I think they should focus on this and try to get the keywords as perfectly as possible.
Search Engine Ads: Thums Up doesn’t go for any ads on Google. I think they can have collaboration with any food place, restaurants etc and along with their ad, Thums Up can promote itself.
Email Marketing: Thums Up can use email marketing for increase in its sales. They can directly contact the people who are involved and have the authority to make decisions. For example, they can target colleges and all. Where they can interact with the higher authority through emails and can get the orders. If they allow, Thums Up can have its stall or counter in the colleges and offices.
From a brand that was virtually unchallenged to a brand that was stifled, Thums Up stormed back after a near death experience. The brand proves that its strength lies not just in its taste but also in its performance. The grown up tag is an enduring one and will probably counter Pepsi for a while to come.