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Pepsi turns caffeine fans on to Josta
Web posted July 16, 1997
A television spot for the beverage shows two elderly men lamenting the fact that they had to turn down two Swedish nurses for a weekend in Paris. Another depicts a grandfather who tells his grandson he regrets his youthful failure to ``chase women'' and ``party till dawn.''
Pepsi doesn't actually call its new drink an aphrodisiac (nudge, nudge, wink wink). But after nearly two years of test-marketing, the No. 2 soft-drink maker is rolling out the caffeine-charged drink with a suggestive national marketing campaign that hints at hidden powers.
Pepsi has used Augusta as a test market for the new soft-drink since October, initially distributing Josta through ``mom-and-pop convenient stores'' in the area, according to Jeff Hickman, a market development representative for Pepsi in Augusta.
``Josta does very well for us,'' Mr. Hickman said. ``It's just a good- tasting soft-drink.''
``There have been a lot of rumors and purported mysterious powers, but we simply think the cult following is based on its great and unique taste,'' Pepsi spokesman Brad Shaw said Tuesday.
The company, which is airing its first spots on MTV and during youth-oriented network programs this week, hopes Josta sales eventually will reach $500 million a year.
Although guarana berries aren't mentioned in major medical encyclopedias, ``The Guarana Page'' on the World Wide Web describes it as a ``slightly narcotic stimulant aphrodisiac'' used by the Orinoco Indians of South America and Brazilian miners to cure migraines and other ills.
For those who scoff at its reputation as a libidinous libation, there's the high caffeine load.
``The taste takes a little bit of getting used to, but it packs a hell of a buzz,'' said Oda Sereix, 21, who buys Josta at the cafe at Specs Music, the Miami record store where she works. ``The guarana is better than the caffeine.''
The suggestion of a beverage-induced charge marks only the latest foray in a cola war that started when Coca-Cola launched the $54 billion soft-drink industry with a coca leaf-based drink 111 years ago. Since then, Jolt Cola has been pitched with the tagline ``all the sugar and twice the caffeine'' and Water Joe launched a new market in caffeinated water drinks.
``You have these teens who are always looking for a buzz. If they could sniff the air and get a buzz they'd do it,'' said Tom Pirko, president of Bevmark, a New York based industry consultant. ``Pepsi's being really cagey about it ... Nobody wants to run afoul of regulatory rules. You have to sort of lay it out and let them come.''
Pepsi, with 31 percent of the domestic soft-drink market, hopes to close in Coca-Cola, which leads the sector at 43 percent. Among its best-sellers is Mountain Dew, the No. 5 brand nationally, quaffed by nearly one in three youths from 12 to 19 each week, according to Northbrook, Ill., market researcher Teenage Research Unlimited. Mountain Dew has done so well that this year Coke launched its own challenger, called Surge.
Josta, first test-marketed in Hackensack, N.J., in the summer of 1995, is now sold in 29 states - a cautious introduction perhaps designed to avert the high-profile flop of Crystal Pepsi, introduced during the 1993 Super Bowl.
Extreme Tea Inc. and Guarana Beverage Corp. have followed Pepsi in offering new guarana products, and Miller Brewing's Plank Road Brewery division is using the berries in beer.
Shrouding a drink in mystery draws interest that other new drinks lack, said Jennifer Solomon, a soft-drink industry analyst at Salomon Brothers in New York.
``Some of it has to do with the caffeine and the historically drug-related aspects,'' she said. ``There's just a little bit more mystique to this. It's not like it's just an orange flavor.''
Staff Writer Matt Pruitt contributed to this article.
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