Advertising & Media Audit On Thums Up

Advertising & Media Audit
On
Thums Up
Phase 1 Report
Submitted by: P.S.V.Rajesh
28-091
Tps-B
Faculty: Ms. K. Grace Mani - Assistant Professor

History of Thums Up
Thums Up is a brand of cola in India. The logo is a red thumbs up. It was introduced in 1977
to offset the withdrawal of The Coca-Cola Company from India. The brand was later bought
by Coca-Cola who re-launched it in order to compete against Pepsi.
As of February 2012, Thums up is the leader in the cola segment in India, commanding
approximately 42% market share and an overall 15% market share in the Indian aerated
waters market.
Thums Up was created in 1977, after the American company Coca-Cola withdrew from
India, due to regulations requiring it to disclose its formula and sell 60% of its equity to an
Indian company under a government plan for foreign-owned companies to share stakes with
domestic partners. The Chauhan brothers owned part of the Parle company and already had
two other brands of soda, Limca and Gold Spot, which were popular in India at the time.
Thums Up quickly became the most popular and achieved a near monopoly among cola
products in India during the 1980s, such as Campa Cola, Double Seven, Dukes and United
Breweries Group's McDowell's Crush.
Ramesh Chauhan had developed the formula from scratch, experimenting with ingredients
such as cinnamon, cardamom, and nutmeg. The company also wanted the drink to be fizzy,
even when it was not ice-cold, so it could be sold by vendors. After much testing and
experimentation, the Chauhan brothers and their research team created a cola that was fizzier
and spicier than Coca-Cola. They originally planned to name the drink “Thumbs Up,” but
removed the “b” to make the name unique.
In 1991, when the Indian government opened the market to multinationals, Pepsi was the first
to come in. Thums Up and Pepsi subsequently engaged in heavy competition for
endorsements. Pepsi advertisements included major Indian movie stars like Juhi Chawla,
while Thums Up increased its spending on cricket sponsorship. Thums Up also introduced a
larger 300 ml (10 US fl oz) bottle, branded "MahaCola" (meaning 'great [in size] cola'; the
original size was 250 ml (8.5 US fl oz)). This nickname gained popularity in smaller towns
where people would ask for "Maha Cola" instead of Thums Up.
In 1993, Coca-Cola re-entered the market, and the three companies competed intensely. Later
in the year, Coca-Cola bought the Parle-owned drinks Gold Spot, Limca and Thums Up for
$60 million. When these were sold to Coca-Cola, Thums Up had a market share of 85 percent
in India.
Relaunch
Despite its strong overall equity, the brand was losing its popularity among the core cola-
drinking age group of 12- to 25-year-olds, partly due to a lack of advertising. At first, Coca-
Cola cut advertising and production for Thums Up to drive customers to their flagship brand,
[8]
but soon realised that Thums Up customers would turn to Pepsi instead of Coke, were
Thums Up withdrawn from the market. Instead, Coke decided to use Thums Up as a rival
brand to Pepsi. The Coca-Cola Company by this time had about 60.5% share of the Indian
soft-drink market but found out that if it took out Thums Up, it would remain with only
28.7% of the market (according to a report by NGO Finance & Trade in India), hence Thums
Up was re-launched, targeting 30- to 40-year-olds.
The brand was re-positioned as a "manly" drink, drawing on its strong taste qualities.
[9]
Thums Up started an advertising campaign directly attacking Pepsi’s television
commercials, focusing on the strength of the drink hoping that the depiction of an "adult"
drink would appeal to young consumers. "Grow up to Thums Up" was a successful
campaign. The brand's market share and equity increased.
Today, the beverage is the leading cola in India, with 42 percent of the cola market share and
15 percent of the market share for all carbonated drinks. It is especially popular among
teenagers, young adults, and people in their 30s and 40s.
Chapter-I
(Description of Product & Customer Need)
Product Level
Core Benefit: The core service or benefit a customer is paying for is the core benefit. For
Thums Up, the core benefit is to quench thirst.
Basic Product: The core benefit is shaped into a basic product with defined attributes and
features. Thums up is a cola drink, available in varying capacities across India.
Expected Product: In this stage, the product is furnished with attributes that a customer
would expect while making the purchase. With Thums Up customers would expect a
reasonably priced cola drink that has a unique differentiating taste and is easily available.
Augmented Product: During this phase, a marketer is responsible to offer a product which
would exceed customer expectations. Brand positioning and competition usually figure
during this phase however for Indian markets it may occur during Expected product stage.
Thums Up has a strong cola taste and is priced as per competitor’s prices (constant
adjustments) with a FMCG delivery model.
Potential Product: At this stage, marketers need to focus on future operations. All possible
renovations and augmentations are considered and at this stage novel ideas need to be
developed to satisfy customers and ensure the differentiating factor of the product. Thums Up
can relaunch its cola sachets as a ready to make beverage. Pricing adjustments can be done
keeping competitor’s pricing in mind. For the health conscious, a low-calorie Diet Thums Up
can be launched to add variety to the product mix.
Objectives of Advertisement
 Persuading retailers to carry higher levels of inventory, encouraging off-season
buying, offsetting competitive promotions, building brand loyalty, and gaining entry
in new markets are some major objectives of promotional activities of Thums up.
 Thums Up employs various promotional and advertising strategies to increase demand
by associating lifestyle and behaviour and offering value-based advertising. Banner
ads, internet promotion, and radio are also used by the brand. By using CSR
(Corporate Social Responsibility) as a marketing tool, it gains an emotional benefit in
the consumer’s mind. Brand Ambassadors include celebrities like Akshay Kumar,
Mahesh Babu and Salman Khan. It employs both push (promotion) and pull
(advertising and campaigns) besides allowing price discounts and allowances to
distributors to push more units into the market.
 Top Line promotions are intended towards mass consumers using mass media.
TV ads, banners, events/festivals sponsorship are certain Top Line promotional
activities carried out by Thums up.
Target Audience
 Thums up has been an iconic drink with a strong presence in Indian market. It has
targeted all age group people from lower, upper and the middle-class section of
society as its potential customer. Although its ads project it as a manly drink but it has
found acceptance from both males and females and even kids.
 Having insight of target customer’s is a must in the marketing mix tool. Thums up is a
popular choice for Indian males and the product is positioned for Indian consumers
only.
Customer Analysis
Customer benefits are a set of tangible and intangible features that a consumer can use.
DAGMAR approach
DAGMAR is an abbreviation for “Defining advertising goals to measure advertising results”.
This model consists of four aspects which are Awareness, Comprehension, Conviction,
Action.
Awareness – Communication tasks involved making the consumer aware of the brand or the
product. Thums up has a high level of awareness among its customers. It constantly promotes
its brand through advertising high profile brand ambassadors. It mainly focuses on television
and print media advertisement.
Comprehension – These tasks also helped the consumer in understanding the attributes and
the features of the product and what the product will do for the consumer. Thums up
promotes its tagline ‘Taste the Thunder’ where it is focusing on its taste.
Conviction – The communication task convinced the customer that this product was meant
for them. Since the brand is focusing on its taste customers mostly prefer to have it during
their party time. We can clearly see in this thums up advertisements that thums up urges
consumers to adopt a ‘Never Give Up Ever’ attitude to succeed in life.
Action – Ultimately, after conviction, the customer was to be enticed to take action. Most to
the customers tend to have its tastes, parties, or while having biryani’s. As this the final step
which involves the purchase of the product.

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Advertising & Media Audit

Faculty: Ms. K. Grace Mani - Assistant Professor

(Description of Product & Customer Need)

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