COMPANY PROFILE The origins of Bisleri lie in Italy, and the brand owes its name to founder Felice

Bisleri, an Italian entrepreneur. In India, Bisleri set up a plant in Mumbai for bottling and marketing mineral water, which was first of its kind in India. However, it did not quite work. Among other reasons, the fact that the Indian consumer was unprepared to accept bottled mineral water was responsible for its failure. Consumer mindsets were more geared towards boiling water at home. In 1969, Parle bought over the' Bisleri' brand. In those days Bisleri water was available in glass bottles. Parle's taking charge of Bisleri did not make a dramatic difference to the brand's fortunes immediately. While it did gain in terms of visibility and reach (piggybacking on Parle's existing distribution network), efforts to expand the bottled water market were not exactly painstaking. Parle at that particular time was interested in making soda water and not mineral water. There were just minor initiatives on part of the company for making mineral water as it was not considered to be a very profitable business at that time a people still considered boiling water to be a safer bet than mineral water. Moreover they were not ready to pay for a commodity like water which was so abundantly available. In 1972-73 Parle changed the packaging of its bottled water to plastic bottles and that significantly made a difference in the sales. The buyers, then, were mainly the upper class - the trendy people. In 1993, Coca-Cola bought parles soft drink brands- thums-up, limca etc. While Coca-Cola actually bought over Parle's beverages, it agreed to a settlement that allowed the multinational to bottle and distribute Bisleri soda for a time frame of five years. The charge of Bisleri water, however, remained with Parle. The upsurge in the sales of Bisleri started from this point as Parle sold off its stable of brands to Coca-Cola. This was the time when its started concentrating on making Bisleri a success in the domestic mineral water market. The reason why Parle chose to retain the Bisleri name was that Parle saw a fairly lucrative business of mineral water in Bisleri's equity. The real shift in companys policy towards mineral water industry came in 1998, although the conscious efforts had already been started in 1994. This change was primarily because of the fact that the people, at this time, had started becoming more health conscious.

MANUFACTURING A quick look at Bisleri's manufacturing reach indicates that it is represented across the country North accounts for 35% of sales for the industry, West accounts for 30%, South 20% and the East 15%. In order to be available in untapped areas Bisleri has setup 16 plants located all over the country - threefourths of which are company owned. The balance are run by franchisees. Bisleri has 5 plants in the North, 5 in the West- two of which were setup in the last year at Ahemdabad and Surat, 4 in the South and 2 in the East. The company has bottling units located in Chennai, Bangalore, Goa, Calcutta, Mumbai, Delhi, Jaipur, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Indore and Nepal. The new plants are being set up in states like Kerala, Orissa, Bihar and North Eastern States, which hitherto have been unexplored by the company. It is also changing its production strategy and shifting to a 10-hr production schedule with sudden increase in demand planned to be met by additional production. Bisleri has planned to expand its operations by investing Rs 60 crore in the upgradation of facilities. The 120-bottles per minute (BPM) capacity of the 16 units across the country will be increased to 240 BPM. Conscious of the environmental implications of its PET bottles, the company is to set up recycling plants at Delhi and Chennai, each with an outlay of Rs.50m. These will process 500 kg of PET per hour. The processed material will be an input for polyester yarn manufacturers. In centers other than Delhi and Chennai, the company will set up crushing units to crush the used PET bottles. The company's expansion plans will see its water bottling capacity go up from the present 400 million litres to 500 million litres. Parle Bisleri Limited (PBL) is planning to invest Rs 200 crore to increase its bottling capacity and double its turnover. The expansion will also increase the number of company's bottling plants from 16 at present, to 25. The company will set up all the new plants as green field plants. It doesnt have any intentions to acquire any existing plants.

DISTRIBUTION It's obvious that availability holds the key to the market. For any product to be successful the distribution system has to be really good. Large tracts of the country have not been explored by the national brands,which explains the proliferation of smaller brands. Bisleris strategy is to build a direct distribution system at an all -India level. Currently, Bisleri has around 80000 retail outlets in the country with about 12000 each in the Metros of Delhi and Mumbai. It is intended to increase this number to 10 lakh outlets in order to expand brands reach. That means serious investments in company-owned trucks and carts. Parle hopes to double its existing fleet of 1000 trucks. This would make it the largest fleet owner in the country. In order to service the home segment, the 5 litre packs are being pushed through the route of Fat Dealers( wholesale dealers) who are retailers as well as stockist and serve as supply points from where customer can pick the required quota. The customer can call the fat dealer and place order for home delivery of the 5 litre pack. 180 of these dealers are already functional, and more are in the process of being appointed. "The idea is to make Bisleri all-pervasive,". The company plans to have its own distribution network in places where it has its own plants. Franchisees would manage the distribution in their respective areas of operation.

PACKAGING Variety is spice of life. Today for any business organisation to be successful it has to provide its customers with the differentiated product that is a value buy for them. In order to cater to the changing needs of the customers the business has to continuously come out with the variants of the product so that it can target the maximum segments. Today, Acqua Minerals offers a variety of packaging options:150 ml, 300 ml, 500 ml, 1 litre, 2 litre, 5 litre, and 20 litre. The 5-litre bottles account for 35 per cent of sales showing a growing health concern among the Indian society. 1 litre bottles account for 30 percent of the share, whereas the 500 ml bottles taking up 15 per cent. The remaining sizes share the rest of the contribution. The 2 litres bottles were introduced to slowly and steadily replace the conventional 1 litre bottles. This would give them an advantage over others. The 500-ml category was re-focused as a trendy product, targeted at the teenage crowd and for the roadside consumers.

Acqua Minerals is currently a supplier to Indian Airlines with 125-ml cups. The five-litre packs, launched in December 1999 in Goa, are currently available in six cities, including Delhi, Bombay and Bangalore, and sell over 5,000 bottles a day.

Following Is A Quick Overview Of The Various Packaging Options Provided By Bisleri Along With The Target Consumers:
Size of the bottle Price bottle 500 ml 1 litre 1.2 litres 2 litres 5 litres 20 litres Rs. 7 Rs. 10 Rs. 12 Rs. 18 Rs. 20 Rs. 40 Teenagers, college students and roadside consumers. Also aimed to supply to the Indian Railways. General consumers and travelers. Consumers demanding a little more water at just a little more price. Small offices, shopkeepers, households Households, institutes, offices, retail shops, showrooms Households, institutes, offices, schools and colleges per Target consumer

In addition to the above mentioned sizes, Bisleri also provides 150 ml cups for Indian Airlines travellers, and 300 ml cups for marriages and parties. The following pie chart clearly shows the sales wise distribution of the various pack sizes

% share of pack sizes in sales

500 ml

10 35 10 30

15

1 litre 2 litres 5 litres others

CHALLENGES IN FRONT OF THE BISLERI

The company had the share of more than 50% of the national market. But now the share of the company is going down, in the pie of the national market. Until recently there was competition with only the unorganized sector. Now, having drowned out by the small-scale emulators with a 40% share of the national market, company now is limbering up for another contest from the multinationals. Other than the financial constraints up to an extent, the company has to focus on the marketing management of the product. In light of the challenge in front of the company and its current strengths and position, we have incorporated the marketing mix to counter the marketing strategies of the competitors by developing its own marketing strategies.

MARKETING MIX OF BISLERI The set of controllable tactical tools- product, price, promotion, and place (4 Ps) that the firm blends to produce the response it wants, in the target markets.

The 4Ps PRODUCT The main product of the company is the mineral water by the name of Bisleri Mineral water. Other than mineral water the company has also the soda water under its brand name called the Bisleri Soda Water. The concept of bottled mineral water was introduced in India, first by Bisleri, and that is the reason, it has become a generic name for the mineral water. Bisleri has become a perfect synonym of the mineral water for the Indian consumers. The main challenge facing the company or any other player in this mineral water industry is that there is no scope of invention and innovation in the product, which can be added as the additional benefits of the product. It is just water after all. This is what the Indian customers think of the bottled water. If we are talking about a product like television we can think that the innovations could provide extra benefits derived from the product. For example other than its core usage the product can provide for Internet facilities using conversion.

VARIANTS OF THE PRODUCT The company is offering wide variants of the product. These include the different quantities available of the product. Starting from the Jumbo pack (18 lt. Jar) to the 500 ml. Bottles. In between, it also has 1 lt., 2 lt. and 5 lt. Packs. In terms of another variant the company has also come up with small glasses of 300ml. that are priced at Rs.3. per glass. The company has introduced these glasses for the social occasions like marriages and get together. This again is very competitive in the price field and also the customer is getting a convenient product with the benefit of purity at such a low price. Now the customers would not have to drink impure water served in unhygienic glasses.

PACKAGING The packaging of the product is an important factor in the marketing of the product. The packaging of the product was absolutely accepted by the customers till now. But it has been along time the company has changed the packaging of 1ltr. mineral water bottle. One of the competitors of the company, Pepsi, has mineral water by the name of Aquafina. The packaging of the Aquafina is creating the need for the company to change its packaging and make it look sturdier. The brand Aquafina has been targeted towards the youth and that is why they have made the bottle look more hip. Bisleri would have to give a new look to its product to stopping Aquafina from snatching its market share. To conclude: Looking at the facts above the company according to me should pay attention on the packaging of the product so that it is able to attract more customers. Second, the company should go for Brand Extension. The company should take the benefit of the brand name it has created over a long period of time. It can introduce new products in the category of beverages.

PLACE Place stands for the company activities that make the product available to the target customers. To make the product available to the target consumers a good distribution network has to be there to support the good quality of the product. Here in the case of the mineral water industry the distribution network is the important factor in being competitive and the catch lies in making water available to maximum number of places in the country.

DISTRIBUTION NETWORK: The small-scale players built their sales by piggybacking on the generic category built up by Bisleri . Its a battle that Bisleri can win by sheer distribution muscle. One of the reason why Bisleri is running strong in this industry is its strong distribution network built over the years since its inception. Further, Bisleri plans to increase its distribution network over the southern and eastern region, where it is behind popular brands like Team in Tamil Nadu and in Andhra Pradesh.

Conclusion : It is very important for the companies to understand that winners would be those who will endure a strong regional presence. Therefore the companies should take some immediate actions to make presence in the whole country and more important is every hook and corner of the states where they are present today. PRICE

PROMOTION Modern marketing calls for more than just developing a good product, pricing it attractively, and making it available to the target customers, companies must also communicate with their customers, and what they communicate should not be left to chance. A Companys total marketing communications program- called its Promotion Mix consists of specific blend of advertising, personal selling, sales promotion, and public relations tools that the company uses to pursue its advertising and marketing objectives.

PROMOTIONAL ACTIVITY
Advertising Campaign of Bisleri before Launch of Acquafina & Kinley Every brand needs a good ad campaign to establish itself in the market. So it becomes very imperative to look at various ad campaigns that Bisleri undertook to build itself as a brand. 1. Bisleri started its game-plan with the punch-line of Pure and Safe and used the same catch-line for advertising. But with the advent of many new players, all claiming the purity, it became very imperative for Bisleri to differentiate its product so as to stand out in the market. Bisleri found the answer in sealed cap bottles. It claimed 100% purity.

2. The ad showed a milk-man and a child showering their buffaloes and filling the so-called mineral water bottles with the same water and packing them with the simple polythene seal and the consumer not knowing about the purity of the water he is drinking. Next clip shows the Bisleri bottles being sealed with plastic caps and ensuring the purity of water. The ad did work for Bisleri and it got its much needed product differentiation.

3. In 2000, some giant brands like Pepsi and coca-cola entered the mineral water industry with a big bang. Bisleri now had a big threat of maintaining its market cap. While Coca-cola introducing its brand Kinley as a health care product, Pepsi projected Aquafina as something as pure as Your own body.Pepsi targeted the young generation and introduced Aquafina as a fancy product to carry. The ad campaign of Aquafina emphasized as 70% of your body is

water and thus give your body the purest water. The ad showed young vibrant models and created the atmosphere of youthfulness. Water, Pepsi claimed, was no longer a simple beverage, but was something highly fashionable. They complimented it by giving their bottles an attractive look. This soon caught the eye of the consumer. All these factors made Pepsi the biggest upcoming competitor of Bisleri . 4. Where as Kinley lagged behind the race, showing a doctor advising a family to take Kinley for pure water not a very attractive ad campaign. 5. Bisleri, to counter-attack the new Feel-Young fever had to even bolder steps. They first changed their base-line from Pure and Safe to Play Safe. They tried a brand new ad campaign to catch the fancy of consumer. 6. The new ad showed a young romantic couple on a marooned island, when the girl seductively attracts the guy and he follows her in trance. The moment he gets hold of her, she whispers something in his ears. The next few shots show the guy looking for something in frenzycan not find it.rushes towards the chemists shop.buys something (keeping the audience in suspenseor rather implicitly pointing for ). The girl opens it and.POOF.takes out a bottle of Bisleri and quenches her thirst. Caption: Play Safe. This campaign was to catch the attention of youth and a new Indian society which is supposed to be not-so-prudish. Thus Bisleri has taken a very bold step. The T.V. ads have been complimented by print ads also. The campaign is reported to be doing pretty well.

Advertisement Campaign of Competitors

A drop-dead gorgeous body flexes its muscles on the screen. This starkly arresting black and white image is then splashed with water. A voice-over informs you that 70 per cent of your body is water. Why not give it the purest ... Aquafina Bottled water from Pepsi. This kind of advertisement campaign used by the competitors is giving the company a tough time. The competitor, Pepsi, is utilizing the brand image built by it and is again targeting the Generation X maintaining the company image. Its an unusual ad for this category. Till now, most marketers have focussed on educating the consumer on how bottled water is a safer option, with the lead, of course, taken by the popular national brand Bisleri. But Pepsi chose to junk this approach, and it could well afford to. Bisleri, after all, had already done most of the hard work needed to build the bottled water category. What Pepsi needed was to establish its brand in this crowded, fragmented market. Our task was made easier because Bisleri had concentrated on educating the consumer, instead of building its own brand values, says Rohit Ohri, vice president and client services director, Hindustan Thompson Associates Limited (HTA). "We wanted the imagery to position Aquafina as a youthful, premium and fun bran d, says Vibha Rishi, executive director, Pepsi. The idea, she says, was not to objectify bodies so that one could drool over them. Instead, we are talking about your body and the need for each one to take care of his or her body. The ad copy, which spoke of the water content in our bodies, was actually trying to establish how important water was to our well- being and how we need to continuously replenish it. While the thinking was clear that the imagery had to be built in and around purity, HTA did toy with a couple of other ideas and situations. Initially, the idea was to focus more strongly on the fun aspect and create a story line complete with a smart idea and a twist at the end. But we gave it up because we felt that the story might take the mind away from the purity aspect that was a must to highlight, says Ohri. So HTA adopted a minimalist approach and created a film with little clutter and no props, which tried to capture the emotion of feeling good about yourself. While the film and the imagery are completely the work of HTA, the strategic thinking comes from the Mother Company in the US. Aquafina, in fact, is the largest-selling bottled water brand in the US with a 12 per cent market share, and India is the first country outside of the US where Aquafina is being bottled.

Even in the US, the ad talks of the percentage of water in our bodies, but the handling is a little more serious. For example, the film will show an emotional moment where someone starts crying, and then you will hear the voice-over, 85 per cent of your eyes are water. There is no internal law that forces us to follow the international positioning. But seeing the quality of thinking that has gone into this, we decided to stay with this positioning, though the statements here are quite different, explains Rishi. Aquafina, like all offerings that come from the Pepsi stable, also imbibes the core values of the mother brand. It addresses the Pepsi-user base, largely the youth, and like Pepsi it is also being positioned as a hip brand. But Aquafina is a lot that Pepsi is not. It is a little bit older, mature and affluent, and not as mass based as Pepsi. Pepsis role in the communication is that it is the source of credibility for the product and, of course, establishes the youthfulness of the brand. But Aquafina is a brand in its own right and with each piece of communication, its personality will emerge feels Ohri.

But while Aquafina is being given a distinct identity, it is also being targeted at the Pepsi consumer and is addressing their need for safe and reliable drinking water. Will this not cannibalize Pepsi sales ? Water does eat into the cola market, agrees Rishi, but we cant build a business for Pepsi based on peoples lack of access to safe drinking water.

How can any business be built on deprivation?" Both will have to co-exist and carve a market out for themselves. And while Pepsi targets the 18-25 year olds, Aquafina also includes the 30-somethings together with the college crowd. Like Pepsi, Aquafina too is looking to command a premium without being unaffordable.

The swirl shaped PET bottle resembles the Pepsi family and is sturdier and more hip than most others in the category that take their design cues, it seems, from the one liter refined oil bottles in the market. The decision to break the norm and come up with a 750 ml pack size was more driven by the fact that water is fundamentally consumed on the go and the 750 ml size is easy to carry around. It is ideal for an half-an-hour in the sun, one liter gets too bulky, says Rishi. Pepsis future plans at the moment dont include coming up with size variants. They have also ruled out the possibility of catering to the bulk market, which actually constitutes 30 per cent of the total bottled

water market that stands at 70 million liters annually, and is growing anywhere between 30 and 50 per cent. Pepsi, obviously, is looking for a big slice of this burgeoning market, but as Subroto Chattopadhyay, executive vice president, marketing, Pepsi, says, We have a building blocks approach, first we have to build the brand, and then the volumes.

Bisleri is tackling the situation by building the brand on the purity plank. Akin to brand building in soft drinks, an aggressive print-and-TV campaign is being backed by hoarding, point-of-sale material, and every interface with the consumer is being used as an opportunity to reinforce the message. For instance, all the vehicles used for supply have been painted in bright blue, bear the Bisleri logo and sport catchy baselines like Play Safe.

ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN
While designing the advertisement campaign, it is necessary to keep in mind the opinion leaders. Youth are the opinion leaders of the present time. And thus it becomes necessary to design the campaign keeping the youth in mind. The opinion leaders would further trickle down the message to the less active members of the society. This is exactly what Bisleri is doing. Bisleri has started an advertisement campaign stressing the point of purity and flaunting the patent right the company has over the breakaway seal. The company has tried to put the message across louder, by using the ad campaign that catches the eye of everyone, specially the youth. Otherwise, we find no reason of making an advertisement of mineral water look like an advertisement of condoms.

MESSAGE CONTENT OF THE CAMPAIGN: Bisleri that was looking for a differentiator decided to make the breakaway seal the symbol of purity. The tamper-proof seal was developed, around which the communication was woven. The campaign stresses the safety provided by the breakaway seal by illustrating the ease with which conventionally sealed bottles can be refilled and recycled. The objective with the campaign would have been to highlight the tamper-proof seal and create doubt in the consumers mind of the purity of the other brands. That is, Bisleri is the only one that guarantees purity and keeps you Safe

CONCLUSION
New advertisement campaign of Bisleri is eye catching. This is what the company should do. And also the company should make the message clearer to the customers that it has the patent right over the breakaway seal. Apart from a high dose of investments on expanding bottling capacities and an ad budget thats risen six-fold over last year, if Bisleri wants to penetrate every possible segment of the market, it can do that by introducing more pack sizes and establishing the brand strongly with trendy new packaging. Apart from creating consumer pull with campaign, the company, to increase its sales would have to do the sales push as well. For that it would have to give the retailers and other stockiest high trade margins and incentives for keeping the product. This is very important in case of this product because consumers would take up what is available to them at ease and whatever retailer is giving. Bisleri has introduced attractive schemes to push the 5ltr. bottles and margins are as high as Rs 8. Detractors feel that, in the long run, retailers will not push this. They say its a kind of dart board game. You have to throw again and again till you hit bulls eye.