ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, June 26, 1996 TAG: 9606260024
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-6 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NEW YORK
SOURCE: Associated Press
NEW ADS FROM THE BIG BOYS of the soft-drink industry try to give an old-fashioned cold beverage an up-to-date image. Sales are hot.
The cola kings are fanning the flames under the fast-growing iced tea business.
Coca-Cola Co. and PepsiCo, the top two names in carbonated soft drinks, each launched advertising campaigns recently for their entries in the low-priced end of the $1.8 billion iced tea market.
Coca-Cola has two quirky ads aimed mainly at teens and young adults for its Cool from Nestea line. One shows a spurned bride using a voodoo doll to set her betrothed on fire. The second shows a diver plunging into a volcano filled with fiery lava. Both men survive by gulping a can of the tea.
The ads, created by Minneapolis-based Fallon McElligott, carry the theme ``Made Cold to Cool You to the Core.''
Pepsi's low-priced entry is Lipton Brisk, which it markets in an alliance with Unilever's Thomas J. Lipton Co.
The commercial, created by J. Walter Thompson in New York, features an animated clay Frank Sinatra who crankily calls for his car as he leaves a concert stage and a screaming horde of fans. After swigging a can of Lipton Brisk backstage, the refreshed Sinatra decides to return for an encore.
The aging crooner was recruited for the campaign because Sinatra ``is still the most potent figure in popular culture,'' said Jennifer Galichon, general manager of the Pepsi Lipton Tea Partnership.
She said it was hoped Sinatra would help impart a timeless, classic and cool image to the brand.
``Beyond Cool. Brisk,'' is the theme of the campaign.
The iced tea business has been a star performer since Coca-Cola and Pepsi threw their distribution and marketing muscle into it in the early 1990s.
Although growth slowed to 15 percent in 1995 from 64 percent a year earlier, industry consultant Beverage Marketing Corp. said iced tea remains one of the fastest-growing beverage categories in the United States.
John Sicher, editor of the trade publication Beverage Digest, said both Lipton Brisk and Cool from Nestea continue to grow significantly this year, while higher-priced premium brands are losing ground.
Brisk is the best-selling low-priced iced tea; Cool is second, trailed by a number of regional brands. Iced tea innovator Snapple is the leader in the premium segment.
In supermarkets alone, Sicher said, iced tea sales volume was up 12 percent through mid-May, with low-priced tea up 32 percent and premium tea off 8 percent. Carbonated soft drinks, meanwhile, are up 5 percent to 6 percent, he said.
Tom Pirko, who heads the beverage consulting firm Bevmark Inc., said Pepsi and Coca-Cola ``have turned iced tea into a soft drink'' by securing shelf space for it in the soft drink aisles, pricing it comparably with colas and other sodas, and offering more-palatable versions.
``You're not getting the tea extremes here. Anybody can quaff these,'' he said.
The soft drink companies have also made the teas available in a wider choice of packages including six-packs of cans and individual 20-and 32-ounce bottles.
The Lipton Brisk ads will run nationwide, Pepsi said. The ads for Cool from Nestea are being run regionally and should eventually be seen in about 70 percent of the country, Coca-Cola said.
Both brands are also being backed with radio and print advertising.
Neither company disclosed the level of ad spending, but industry sources expect each will spend $10 million to $15 million this year.
LENGTH: Medium: 79 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP 1. In a commercial for Cool from Nestea (left), aby CNBman gulps a can to survive a voodoo flame attack from his jilted
fiancee. 2. In an ad for Lipton Brisk, a clay animated Frank Sinatra
(below) mellows out enough for a concert encore after downing a can
backstage.