Soft drink marketing gets makeover

NEW YORK — Feeling bad about the economy? Indulge a little, have a soda.

Marketers at Coca-Cola Co. and PepsiCo Inc. are counting on that sentiment to appeal to consumers overwhelmed with a drumbeat of bad economic news.

“What people want to do is pause and refresh,” said Coca-Cola chief marketing officer Joe Tripodi.

Pepsi, the world’s second-largest soft drink maker, launched a new marketing campaign at the beginning of the year, while No. 1 Coke launched its campaign three weeks later.

Soda makers, who have seen their highest-profile products lose ground to energy drinks and pricey bottled water in recent years, are turning away from the lifestyle marketing that has dominated the soda wars. They hope to draw customers back to the old favorites with a simple lure: they’re cheaper — or at least a better value.

Coke’s campaign includes 16-ounce plastic bottles of Coke, Coke Zero, Diet Coke, Sprite and Fanta for 99 cents. The new size could draw people looking for a bargain, in that a 20-ounce bottle costs $1.25 to $1.50.

An ad campaign called “Open Happiness” and tied to the “Coke Side of Life” ads launched on “American Idol” last week. One spot features two students sitting across from each other in a library and flirting by drawing competing images of Coke bottles.

“A lot of people have left the category,” Beverage Digest editor John Sicher said last week. “Also, a lot of young people have not entered the category, so these ads may help Coke both recruit new young consumers and re-recruit some lapsed ones.”

In recent years, as U.S. soda sales fell steadily — including 2.5 percent in the third quarter last year at PepsiCo, while Coke doesn’t break out soft drink performance — the two turned to other bottled drinks for growth.

PepsiCo refocused its drinks portfolio around bottled Lipton teas and Starbucks coffees, its Aquafina bottled water, Izze sparkling juice drinks and others.

Coke made the biggest drinks acquisition in industry history in June 2007 when it bought Glaceau’s VitaminWater for $4.1 billion. Though its products contain plenty of sugar, the brand had attracted health-conscious consumers with drink names such as Power-C, Defense, Endurance, Rescue and Multi-V.

But CEO Muhtar Kent said last fall that soft drinks are the “oxygen of our industry.”

The chief executives of both soda makers indicated they were refocusing on soft drinks last fall as consumers felt the weight of a recession, but it had not yet been officially declared.

PepsiCo’s push is “complementary” with the trend of shoppers trading down, the company’s North American beverages chief, Massimo D’Amore, said Tuesday. He declined to say the company was appealing to consumers’ pocketbooks.