TRIARC'S INITIAL MOVES WITH SNAPPLE

At the time of Tricac's purchse of Snapple, consumers ha 1 more choices between ready-to-drink beverages than ever before. By mid 1997, the New age market had undergone yet another shake-up. Pepsi stopped distributing fruit drinks from Ocean Spray and launched its own Fruit Works brand. Other new brands like Nantucket Nectars, a line of 100 percent juice drinks packaged in unique bottles, and Campbell Soup Co.'s V8 Splash, a carrot-based blend of fruit juices targeting younger consumers, were entering the marketed threatened to squeeze out even more market share from Snapple. To breathe life back into Snapple, Traiarc had to invest heavily in new product development and employ dynamic marketing strategies that would differentiate Snapple from competitors and recapture the attention of consumers. Triarc soon announced that it would apply the same marketing principles to Snapple that it used to turn around its successful Mistic beverage line: edgy advertising, strong distributor relationship, colorful labels and focused street sqles. The first set of Snapple ads under Triarc's direction featured Wendy's reappearance on a desert island and the on a desert island and the labels of several of Snapple's products fotured Wendy's face to symbolize the return of Snapple to its core values.

Whipper Snapple. Perhaps the most innovative and important development to emerge out of Triarc's product development efforts was the Whipper Snapple, a ruit smoothie beverage introduced in the summer of 1998.

Sweet Tea. Triarc also undertook efforts to revive Sanpple's sluggish sales of bottled juice and tea beverages, adn to explore new opportunities within these bottled beverage categories. To create greater appeal of Sanapple among Southerners, Snapple introduced its Sweet Tea product line, which added cane sugar and other sweeteners to traditional Snapple tea recipes to create a Snapple version of the popular Southern beverage.

Snapple Farms. Furthermore, Triare launched Snapple Farms, a 100 Percent pure juice drink with potential to enter the lucrative school lunch market. The fresh and natural approach of the Snapple Farms line was aimed at changing consumer impressions of Snapple as a sugary, unnatural beverage.
Triarc continued to innovate its products beyond the 1998 introduction of Whipper Snapple and Snapple Farms.

Snapple Hydro. Snapple Hydro thirst quenchers were re-launched in April 1999 after an unsuccessful try in 1998 under the Refresher’s brand name. The range is composed of several fruit juices and two 1998 real –brewed sun teas. Snapple Hydro has all the characteristics of a sport beverage. Hydro was not positioned necessarily to attack Gatorade core consumer best of athletes. The marketing strategy suppurating the new brand was ambitious: Snapple Hydro aimed to conquer the ’’ motion market” or in other words, to capture a ‘‘stomach’s share” of a large base of active consumers.
Snapple Elements. Also launched in April 1999, Snapple Elements is range of 6-flaver herbal-enhanced fruit drink and teas, which was positioned in the fast-growing Wellness Beverage Category along with So Be. These new functional drinks were intended to offer more then refreshment. Apart from being an all-natural beverage, the health-promise of Elements was limited to the listing of herbal additive dosage on the label and balanced by a clearly claimed refreshment benefit .

REJUVENATING SNAPPLE`S MARKETING Marketing these new product innovation as Snapple’s existing product was another central focus of Triac`s revitalization of the brand. The company continued to sponsor two controversial personalities: shock jock Howard Stern for Snapple and conservative talk-show host Rush Limbaugh for Diet Snapple. Triarc sough the attention of consumers through imaginative nationwide promotion campaigns and contests. The Win Nothing Instantly contest was a popular 1998 marketing program in which Snapple consumers won unique cash prizes such as free rent for a year or no car payments for six months. Subsequent promotion campaigns focused on using Snapple’s packaging and labeling to emphasize the renewed quirkiness of the brand: The $1 million ``The Joke’s On Us” promotion featured the faces of 23 average looking Snapple employees appearing on various product labels throughout 1999 in an effort to convey Snapple’s appeal to ordinary people who value the best stuff made on earth Brand icon Wendy Kaufman embarked on a national jock tour as support. Consumers could also save labels for discounts on logoed gear offered via Snapple’s revamped web site, the brand’ first merchandise push. Snapple executive redesigned the theme of the brand’s labels to reflect a woodcut motif to emphasize Snapple’s purity. Triare also began exploring new method of labeling so as to maximize color quality and reduce the occurrence of label damage. In its first year operating Snapple, Triarc sold 100 million more bottles of Snapple then Quaker 1998, Trairc Inc increased annual sales for the firs time since 1995. Sales of Snapple rose eight percent in 1998 and contributed significantly to triarc’s 50 percent increase in premium beverage sales that year This is a fashion business commented Havis Dawson of Beverage World "Snapple is coming back into fashion because it’s once again asking the question: What’s new?"

TRIARC’S PLANS FOR FURTHER GROWTH With the Snapple brand “back on its feet” Triarc now needed to implement new marketing plans to ensure its continued growth and prosperity. Snapple’s marketing program for 1999 Was mixture of traditional and more innovative elements. Snapple's objective was to re-assert the brand values that helped to build Snapple's success, as well as to keep the brand on a cutting edge and moving forward. Back-to-the roots advertising campaigns and sponsorship programs, combined with the launch of Snapple's web site and an innovative outdoor campaign, were also key points of Snapple's marketing program.

Television advertising
Created by Deutsch N.Y. as part of a $27 million TV and radio campaign, two new commercials advertising Snapppl's core fruit juice and iced-tea came on air April 1999. They both highlighted a strong product-focused message aimed at strengthening the key differentiating asset of Snapple's core products against lower-end competitors. The spots stuck to the premium and all-natural positioning of the brand and in particular emphasized the fact that Snapple was made form real juice.

Sponsorship
In 1999, Snapple Iced Tea became the official lced Tea of the New Your Yankees, an appropriate match for the brand given Snapple's Brooklyn roots. A fully integrated marketing program enhanced the local signaficance and impact of this program.

Web Site Snapple launched its own web site in May 1999. Designed by SF Interactive, the site was intended to be an active part of Snapple's integrated marketing program. It provided an innovative vehicle to support on-going promotion programs, as well as to relive Snapple's advertising campaing or to unveil novelties. The tone of the web site was designed to fit Snapple's brand character, enhancing the humorous side of the brand image and leveraging the graphic look and feel of Snapple equities. Following these new marketing measures, sales of Snapploe cases rose 14 percent during the second quarter of 1999. Snapple continued to be the leading brand in the "New Age" beverage category, which grew by 15 percent in 1999, with volume growth of six percent for the year. Snapple's performance in 2000 surpassed its strong growth form 1999. For the year, Snapple maintained a 40 percent share of supermarket alternative beverage sale. In the first six months of 2000, Snapple volume increased 27 percent compared with overall juice industry growth of only 11 percent. For that period, Snapple's revenues rose seven percent to $ 115 million for the company. in addition to Snapple, the Snapple Beverage Group owned and marketed Triarc's other beverage brands, comprised of Mistic, Royal Crown, Diet Rite, Stewart's and Nehi. Triarc Beverage Group CEO Michael Weinstein became the new Snapple Beverage Group CEO on June 22, 2000 Triarc announced that its board of directors had approved the IPO and expected to complete the offering during the third quarter of 2000. The IPO never Occurred, however, because Triarc found a buyer for Snapple in Cadbury Schweppes PLC. On Sepotember 18, 2000, Cadbury announced plans to purchase Snapple Beverage Group for $1.45 billion. Triarc expected to gain $700 million form the sale. Careful to avoid making the same mistakes as Quaker Oats, Cadbury kept Snapple management intact, preserved the company's headquarters in Long Island, NY, and maintained the existing distribution system. Michael Weinstein remained as CEO of the Snapple Beverage Group, which Cadbury administered separately form its Dr. Peper/Seven Up unit. The acquisition of the Snapple Beverage Group gave Cadbury a two percent boost in its share of th overall (carbonated and non-carbonated) refreshment beverage market. The purchase of Snapple Beverage Group also made Cadbury a leader in non-carbonated premium New Age beverages, which according to Cadbury COO John Brock, "Put [Cadbury] in an outstanding position compete" considering that triarc bought Snapple form Quaker in 1997 for $ 300 million, its sale to Cadbury represented the final step in Snapple's turnaround in the hands of Trirc management.