VENDING MACHINES:
Nowadays, we can find a lot of vending machines almost anywhere. The place is they can be found in front of buildings, shops, entertainment facilities, and even in residential areas. Why are there so many vending machines all over Britain? There are many kind of drinks sold on vending machines. We can have a variety of choices for drinks. Of course, vending machines are convenient. We can get drinks any time,anywhere. But, the prices of the drinks sold on vending machines are usually higher than those at stores.
It was an early policy of the Coca- Cola company to make their product readily available to everyone all the time and they have certainly stuck to this as in London, a survey in 2002 showed that there was a vending machine containing Coke, on average, every 300m².
SHOPS AND RETAIL OUTLETS:
Of course, you can still buy drinks in almost every shop on the street, and this has led to a massive boom in the Soft- Drinks Market. Where as 30 years ago, drinks were only availible in Supermarkets and other mass- retailers, soft- drinks, and in some cases, alcoholic drinks, can now be purchased in newsagents, pharmacies, general stores and around 90% of all shops.
PUBS AND LICENSED OUTLETS:
Despite the boom in vending machine sales and the enhanced availability of drinks in high street shops, pubs and licensed outlets are still just as popular as ever:
While the demand for drinks is obviously a natural human need, it is also maintained by the numerous outlets available, which can be divided between take-home, the on-trade and other catering outlets.
Over 70% of the alcoholic drinks market value goes through the on-trade, covering pubs, restaurants and bars. While volumes have shifted towards take-home, or the off-trade, the market value remains biased towards `drinking out', largely due to price differences. In contrast to price wars on bulk purchasing in supermarkets — including ever larger take-home packs and two-for-the-price-of-one deals, etc. — are the rising prices charged in the UK's thousands of modernised pubs and bars.
The on-trade is still dominated by traditional pubs, but a large proportion of these have reinvented themselves as `food pubs', or they target either families or young drinkers. Fast-food outlets and coffee shops are important for the soft and hot drinks markets, and many other drinks outlets are situated in the leisure sector (including in sports clubs, nightclubs, shopping malls and cinemas, etc.).
The traditional off licences and wine merchants have struggled against the powerful multiple grocers as outlets for take-home drinks. There are only a few national multiples of significance, including First Quench, Oddbins and Majestic Wine Warehouses.
This diverse range of drinks outlets is supported by the numerous occasions on which it is seen by consumers to be appropriate to enjoy an alcoholic drink. Key Note's consumer usage opinion survey in 2002 found that the overall leading occasion was Christmas and New Year, but there are many other times when consumers enjoy a drink.
Here is a list of the major drinks manufacturers of drinks from the year 2002. They were selected on the basis of over £500,000 profit from sales in 2002:
According to a recent survey conducted by Mintel.com, these thirty drinks manufacturers are the market leaders in producing and selling soft Drinks.
- Belvoir Fruit Farms
- Beverage Brands
- Bottle Green Drinks Company
- Britvic Soft Drinks
- Cadbury Schweppes
- Coca Cola Enterprises
- Cott Beverages
- Danone
- WatersElla Drinks
- G Costa
- Glaxo Smith-Kline
- Hall & Woodhouse
- Matthew Clark
- BrandMerrydown plc
- Consumer Health
- Pago Fruit Juices
- Pernod Brands
- Perrier
- Vittel
- UKPrince's Soft Drinks
- The Silverspring Mineral Water Co.
- South African Breweries
- T&T Beverages
- Thorncroft
- Tropicana
- Twinings
- Van den Bergh Foods
- Villa Soft Drinks
- Well Well Well
Although most normal people may have only heard of a few of the names above, these companies are supplying all the supermarkets and other brands with their products, even if they are not as recognised, perhaps, as the brands that they sell to. Some brands however, do produce their own products. The Coca- Cola company for example manufactures, markets and sells popular soft drinks such as Fanta, Sprite and Coca-Cola by itself. Its what we in the business call ‘a self- sufficient’ manufacturer.
The barriers to entry are quite low for manufacturing and distributing many drinks. However, the ease of developing economies of scale for branded drinks means that the supply side is increasingly concentrated among large multinational or national manufacturers.
Brewing was traditionally a regionally fragmented industry, but national consolidation has been followed by globalisation. Mergers and acquisitions in the 10 years to 2002 gave four companies a dominant position in this, the largest of the drinks sectors. These leading companies are: Scottish & Newcastle, now easily the largest indigenous UK brewer, but also (since 2000) a major force across European brewing; Interbrew SA, the Belgian company behind Stella Artois, the leading beer in the UK; Coors Brewers Ltd, the US company that acquired much of the Bass empire in 2001; and Carlsberg-Tetley Brewing Ltd, the UK subsidiary of the global giant based in Denmark.
Spirits production used to be closely linked to brewing but the trend has been towards specialisation. The two UK leaders in the spirits, liqueurs and fortified wine sector are also the global leaders. Diageo PLC, through its Guinness UDV division, is the major player in the spirits market, as well as being an international brewer, with global brands including Johnnie Walker Scotch whisky, Smirnoff vodka, Gordon's gin, and Bailey's Irish Cream liqueur. Allied Domecq has particular strengths in dark spirits, liqueurs and fortified wine. Both Diageo and Allied Domecq are expanding their wine interests globally.
Bacardi-Martini is another global force, represented in the UK by its famous white rum. It is also a leader in the FABs sector, with Bacardi Breezer, which is pitched against Diageo's Smirnoff Ice for market leadership.
Cider typifies the market consolidation in traditional drinks. Two companies, HP Bulmer and Matthew Clark Brands, account for over 90% of the UK market.
In this section I will list the major brands. A manufacturer is a company, which produces and packages a product to either sell independently or sell to another company who sells them on. A brand is just the name a product is sold under. So here it is, the list of the major brands selling soft drinks:
- Coca- Cola
- Nestle
- Tetley Tea
- Schweppes
- Budweiser
- Starbucks…apparently
- Various divisions of Omnicorp. ltd
A brands survey by Key Note in 2001 found that 62% of adults drink Nescafé, 54% drink Coca-Cola, 43% drink Robinson's (fruit drinks), and 38% drink Tetley Tea. This illustrates the market balance between international brands, such as Nescafé, and domestic favourites, such as Tetley.
Soft and hot drinks are also globalised markets, and have been for many decades. Coca-Cola is the world's leading consumer brand and the company behind it dominates the UK soft drinks market, also producing many top brands in fruit carbonates (e.g. Fanta), juices and bottled water. Second to Coca-Cola is Britvic Soft Drinks Ltd, principally due to its distribution of the Pepsi range, but also a producer of many top domestic brands, such as Robinson's and Tango. The main competitors in hot drinks are giant consumer goods manufacturers, including Unilever, Nestlé and Kraft.
I will now choose a few well known drinks brands and analyse their advertising campaigns, corporate identity and target markets:
BUDWEISER:
SLOGAN: “KING OF BEERS”
CURRENT ADVERTISING SLOGAN: “THINK FRESH, DRINK FRESH”
I think that by using these two slogans as the front of the Budweiser advertising campaign, the company is portraying the image of Budweiser being a high- quality beer, but is available to everyone. This is a very clever media cover, as it appeals to all classes of people and fools them into believing that they are of a higher class than they may actually be, and presenting the product as fresh and the best of the best. Budweiser have also moved their recent campaigns in the direction of becoming an all-round corporation, rather than just a beer company. This adds to the appeal of the product.
Here is what us beer- boffins, like to call: the Budweiser tasteometer:
And there you have it. Straight from the people at Budweiser, and not by me that’s for sure. Anywho, Budweiser has become one of the biggest corporations in the world and not just because of its product, but also because of the hugely valuable corporate image it has carved for itself. Furthermore, they make some damn-fine beer.
All drinks have some of marketing program behind them. It is possible to work out which of these has been the most successful, by studying the sales of various brands. I hope that in this project I have outlined the main competitors in the market and given some information about how each product is promoted, sold and received by the public.
