Bisleri: Drops of Success!

It isnt often the case that the name of a brand is so finely intertwined with th e product category it belongs to. However, this has been quite true for Bisleri, the bottled water brand from Ramesh Chouhan, the man who created many a cola br and, including ThumsUp and many others. Being the first company in the country t o sell packaged drinking water, the name Bisleri has become synonymous with mine ral water itself. Down Memory Lane Bisleri arrived on the desi shores as a foreign brand way back in 1965 in Bombay in glass bottles of two varietiesbubbly and still. It was being imported by Feli ce Bisleri, a company of Italian origin. Four years later in 1969, the company w as to change hands when Parle, under the leadership of Ramesh Chauhan, bought it over from Felice Bisleri and started bottling mineral water in glass bottles un der the brand name Bisleri itself. It has come a long way since then and at pres ent holds a commendable market position in the estimated Rs. 1,800-crore package d drinking water category in the country. Varied History The key reason behind the brand Bisleris success is that it has had the first mov ers advantage. Bisleri however, did not always seek to build a brand out of miner al water. Parle bought Bisleri with the view of launching a carbonated water bus iness, which was in demand in 5-star hotels and clubs. At that time, a major chu nk of the around 400,000 bottles sold annually in the country used to be soda, a nd not water or colas. But even though during the 1980s, business began to pick up and numbers started to improve, in 1993 Chauhan decided to sell the carbonated soft-drinks business to Coca-Cola. It was only then that he began to focus exclusively on the package d drinking water business and aggressively promote Bisleri water. One of the most significant decisions taken by Chauhan in building the brand Bis leri was to manage the logistic part of this business himself, since he had a di scouraging experience with transporters who refused to touch his high-weight, lo w-priced product. By 2008 Bisleri had over 2,000 trucks operating across the cou ntry, ensuring nation-wide supply. Since 1995 Bisleri has begun to expand operat ions quite substantially and the turnover has multiplied more than 20 times over a decade. Last fiscal, the brand clocked a turnover of Rs. 500 crore. Innovation is the Name of the Game Chauhans astuteness coupled with continuous innovation has helped Bisleri emerge as a strong brand in customer recall. Says Parles new business development and ma rketing director Anjana Ghosh, Over the years we have conducted a series of studi es to determine what consumers want and introduced changes accordingly. We have a separate marketing team studying consumer needs. In terms of packaging, Bisleri bottles have undergone many changes over the year s. From glass bottles, Parle switched over to PVC non-returnable bottles and fin ally advanced to PET containers. Not only that, the bottles have also been sized keeping in mind individual need, and Bisleri is now available in seven pack siz es of 250ml, 500ml, 1L, 1.5L and 2L non-returnable packs and 5L and 20L returnab le packs. According to Ghosh, internationally mineral water bottles mostly come in 2L packs, but Bisleri has laid much emphasis on the 1L and the 500ml packs t o make it more convenient and affordable. To keep its brand fresh and vibrant, Bisleri also decided to branch out a little . Realising that it did not have a presence in the natural mineral water segment despite being the first brand to enter the packaged drinking water space, the c ompany decided to tap this premium water segment as well. Thus, Bisleri Mountain Natural Mineral Water, available in two different pack sizes of 500ml and 1L, w as launched for the premium segment in November 2006 with a bottling plant at Ru drapur, Uttarakhand where it is packaged at source. The Bisleri product range no w comprises two variants: Bisleri with added minerals and the Bisleri Mountain W ater. Green is the Way Ahead One of the most successful initiatives by Bisleri has been its journey from blue to green. Bisleri has rejuvenated itself by going through a massive brand re-eng

ineering process. Green is the symbol of the nature, health and tranquillity. T he aqua green colour of Bisleri represents freshness and healththe two qualities you associate with water, says the marketing director, under whose stewardship Bi sleri went through the brand re-structuring in November 2006. The transformation from blue to green has helped the brand gain better acceptanc e from the existing as well as potential consumers, which is clearly demonstrate d by the leap that its sales saw after the change of image. After the brand re-e ngineering, the new and young image of vibrant the Bisleri bottle ensured that t he companys sales zoomed by almost 60 percent. Managing partner of Red Lion, the creative agency of Bisleri, Elsie Nanji remark s that Bisleri has become generic to the bottled water category, so much so that other bottled water brands chose to go with the blue of the Bisleri when it ent ered the category. (Both Aquafina of PepsiCo and Kinley of Coca-Cola, along with most other regional bottled water brands sport the blue even now.) We conscienti ously moved to a fresh aqua green to move away from others in the category, adds Nanji. Ceaseless Communication Bisleri has always been in the forefront where marketing communication is concer ned. Ghosh proudly reminds us that Bisleri has constantly communicated with cons umers since the 1970s, addressing the issue of safe drinking water. This include s ATL advertising and BTL activities such as one-on-one interaction with consume rs to educate them and create awareness safe drinking water. Innovation and communication go hand-in- hand with Bisleri. It has come up with campaigns at different points of time to drive home various messages. But the bu lk of its advertising is to create awareness amongst consumers to play it safe w hen it comes to choosing drinking water. Bisleri has promoted its break-away sealth e first brand to launch break away seal in the industryand its advantages through a number of campaigns, such as that of a woodpecker trying to break a 20L jar s eal and failing to do so and hurting itself in the process. Another one includes a commercial showcasing how other local water brands are being filled, thus pro ving that it is unsafe and why Bisleri is safe with its break-away seal. The company has done well to capitalise on the packaging changes to create brand recall through campaigns when it introduced the 1.2L-pack and the 500ml-bottle for Rs. 5. Similarly, it grabbed a large part of air-time when it launched the natural mountain water. One of the most recent Bisleri ads to hit TV screen in 2 008 was an abstract ad showing purity and safety of mountain water. Based on a simple concept of Bisleri being the original mountain water, the film explores myriad expressions within every drop of the mountain water. As a life-g iving source, as the nectar from the gods, and as a celebration of life, the fil m is majestic and takes on a leadership stance, is what Nanji has to say about th e campaign. Crystal-Gazing The two pillars of brand-building for us have been to ensure availability on ever y shelf and good after-sales service, explains Ghosh. These are the lines on whic h she plans to take the brand forward in the future too. According to her, brand ing and communication have never been much of a hurdle since Bisleri has always enjoyed top-of-the-mind recall. But distribution has been and continues to be on e of the biggest challenges faced by the brand. To reduce the pressure on distribution networks and bring down costs, Bisleri is planning to open 25 new bottling plants in the coming years, taking it well bey ond the present 52. This should make market penetration a much easier task, feel s Ghosh. While consolidating the brand presence in the metropolitan and Class A and B cities, it is also part of her plan to target class C cities and rural mar kets in the coming years. Bisleri also has to fight a battle with the unorganised sector. The organised s ector comprises only 30-35 percent of the market. In fact, Bisleri faces the maj or brunt of competition at this level rather than at the national level, says Gh osh. The way out is to educate consumers about the importance of good quality pac kaged drinking water, she adds. The same strategy holds true in case of promoting the 20L-pack, which is the cur

rent trend. Already topping in institutional sales, the focus will be to place i t in every home. To increase its reach and visibility for consumers, Bisleri has started a free-home delivery service for all seven sizes, wherein people can or der cases of bottles online. The brand will launch its communication on various platforms, including print and television and BTL activities. Bisleri, which sold a record number of 3.24 million cases in the last fiscal yea r, is targeting a 40 percent growth this year. Indeed, sky is the limit for the mineral water giant. And the good news is that it seems to understand well the i mportance of constantly re-shaping and rejuvenating itself to maintain its leade rship.