Brand Advantage

Pepsi has become a friend to youth and youth culture. Over generations,
youngsters have grown up with Pepsi and have shared an emotional connect
with it unlike with any other cola brand. Be it parties, hangouts with friends, or
just another day at home, a day is never complete without the fizz of Pepsi!
Pepsi has always fuelled youth passions like cricket, Bollywood, music and
now football. Youth icons like MS Dhoni, Ranbir Kapoor, Didier Drogba, Virendar
Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar, Priyanka Chopra and Deepika Padukone have
endorsed Pepsi since its launch in India.
Pepsi Changed the Game during the 2011 cricket world cup by challenging
convention, celebrating the unorthodox and by becoming the official sponsor of
everything that was unofficial about the sport! Change the Game even as a
thought has gained enormous popularity and generated tremendous buzz.
Taking the same theme forward in 2012, Pepsi changed the game yet
again by taking the lead in celebrating the exciting new platform of football.
Having brought the biggest international football stars and pitching them against
the mighty Indian cricketers in a classic faceoff for Pepsi is something which
only a brand like Pepsi can deliver.
Brand Strategy
Before studying the competitive environment in which Pepsi operates, it is
necessary to understand the mechanics of PepsiCos entry into India. This is
essential because the pillars of the success of PepsiCos brand were laid in the
early years of its entry. Till 1977, Coca-Cola was the leading soft drink company
in India. However, the regulations in the country laid down by the Foreign
Exchange Regulation Act (FERA) and orders by the Indian government to reveal
its secret recipe forced Coca-Cola to exit the Indian market. PepsiCo entered
India in 1988 through a joint venture. The joint venture sold PepsiCo products
under the Lehar brand (Lehar Pepsi). Post liberalization in 1991, the requirement
for foreign companies to operate with a minority stake was relaxed, and PepsiCo
bought out its partners.
Pepsi introduced its products in India at a time when the adoption of Western
products by Indian consumers was on a rise. It did not have any significant
competition in the country at that time and the late entry of Coke (1993) enabled
Pepsi to establish a stronghold in the Indian markets. The Pepsi brand became
synonymous with soft drinks and this helped the company in dominating the cola
category in the early years.
Classification of Soft drink market
The soft drink market can broadly be classified into cola and non-cola drinks. The
cola segment commands a market share of around 62%. The non-cola segment
consists of soda, flavoured drinks and lemon drinks. For PepsiCo, while Pepsi is in
the cola category, 7UP, Mirinda, Mountain Dew and Nimbooz populate the noncola category. Other brands in PepsiCo portfolio include Aquafina (drinking
water), Gatorade (sports drink), Tropicana (fruit juices), and Slice (juice-based
drink). The brands operate independently but a change in the market patterns
can make the parent company shift its focus from one brand to another.

Positioning of Pepsi
Since its inception, Pepsi has always targeted the youth segment. The changing
demands and sentiments of the younger generation in the country have resulted
in changes in the positioning of Pepsi. This can be observed from the changes in
the taglines, logo, advertisement messages and means of communication of
messages.
From The choice of a new generation (1990), Pepsi has introduced a number of
new taglines reflecting a shift in focus of the youth. Yeh hi hai right choice baby,
Aha was introduced in 1992, Yeh Dil Maange More in 1999, Yeh Pyass hai Badi
in 2004 and Yeh Hai Youngistaan Meri Jaan in 2008. The current Pepsi tagline is
Change the Game which started with companys association with the 2011
Cricket World Cup and was successful in creating a prominent brand recall in the
minds of the consumers. Pepsi advertisements have also been targeted at the
youngsters. Pepsi focussed on two of the biggest obsessions of the Indian youth
Cricket and Bollywood to design its advertisement campaigns. Even the
hoardings, posters and print ads expanded on this theme. Popular celebrities
from these two domains were used to generate a connect of the brand with the
youth. These celebrities are treated as role models and trend setters for the
youngsters and Pepsi has tried to make use of these desired qualities to project
its brand. Its youth focus can also be observed from the change in its brand icon
from Sachin Tendulkar to Mahinder Singh Dhoni. The success of the Indian cricket
team in the recent times (specially the World Cup) has gone a long way in
strengthening its brand value in the minds of the consumers.

Brand equity is outcome that accrue to a need/want satisfier when the brand
name is added on. It is the incremental contribution (Money) per year obtained
by the brand in comparison to the underlying product (or service). The
incremental contribution is driven by the individual customers incremental
choice probability for the brand in comparison to his or her choice probability for
the underlying product with no brand-building efforts. The method provides
what-if analysis capabilities to predict the likely impacts of alternative strategies
to enhance a brands equity. Brand equity is one of the more popular concepts in
marketing today. It is also one of the most used terms in marketing research, and
the subject of much fuzzy thinking. In fact, there are several definitions of brand
equity, all of which stem from the concept of 'brand.' A useful definition is that a
brand is the sum total of all that is known, thought, felt and perceived about your
company, service or product. Branding, then, is the process of making products
and companies into brands - the consistent and disciplined way a company
communicates a brand's essence to the public. Consumers' response to the
brand revolves around the brand's image. This makes the concept an essential
input into marketing strategy since a positive, strong brand image will
presumably lead to choosing a particular brand. Achieving strong brand
differentiation is absolutely fundamental to building a compelling brand
relationship with customers. Brand equity can be thought of as the differential
effect of brand knowledge on consumer response to the marketing of the brand.
Fundamentally, high levels of brand awareness and a positive brand image
should increase the probability of brand choice. That is the fundamental goal of

managing one's brand. Brand equity only exists as a function of consumer

choice in the marketplace. And although marketing and communications efforts
can create and change brand images, brand equity comes into being when a
consumer chooses a product or service.
Findings of Pepsi Brand Equity Pepsi as a brand has done reasonably well in the
parameter Brand Knowledge by securing third position and in Brand
Leveragability by securing second position. Thus we can infer that the
respondents can differentiate Pepsi as a brand from other brands and could
easily relate it to other products as different as Cars and Shampoo. However in
the parameter Brand Vitality Pepsi is the last among the total brands indicating
that the respondents see the brand Pepsi as a brand which is very low in
Relevance, where as in the parameter buying behaviour where we had checked
the loyalty of the respondents towards the brands where the brand Pepsi again
was the last indicating that although the respondents are able to distinguish the
brand, they dont see the brand as a need/want satisfier. In Brand Association
where we had chosen four other factors besides the product attribute, Pepsi was
ranked third among the other brands, this indicates that the brand has got
promise in terms of the overall brand image and respondent still associate good
qualities with the brand name.

Brand Equity Measurement Model

In this model we tried to basically cover all the factors which influences the
buying decision of the consumer which in turn constituted the brand equity.
Parameters taken
Brand Knowledge
Brand Vitality
Brand Association
Brand Leveragability
Buying Behaviour
We would be ranking the brands based on the scores achieved and then will be
giving scores based on the rank achieved and the cumulative score of the brand
would be the equity of the brand.
Brand Knowledge : Will be analysing percentage of respondents aware of the
brand and giving scores based on the rank the brand has got among the brands
the customer is aware of.
Brand Vitality : In this we would be analysing the attribute that the customer
perceives to be there in the product and buys it then would move on to the
brands which has got that most important attribute as per the customer
perception.
Brand Association: In this we would be analysing what and how much are the
intangible factors that a particular brand has compared to the other brands the
customer is aware of which pulls the customer towards it.
Brand Leveragability : We would be analysing the potential of the brand to
extend to related, or even unrelated, product categories.

Buying Behaviour : We would basically be judging the customer loyalty towards a

particular brand by having availability as a factor.

To assess the strength of the brandTo measure the equity of the brand Pepsi we will come up with a model that
brings out the overall perception of the consumer towards the brand which
influences their purchase, since the base product we were dealing with was cold
drink, where the prices of all the brands are the same thus a model defining the
premium that a brand can charge was not that relevant.
Brand Equity of a brand is one of the most important aspect if the company
wants to know how well the brand overall is being perceived by the consumer
and what are the deciding factors in consumers purchasing the product
From the study so far, we have observed that Pepsi enjoys reasonable amount of
Brand Knowledge as it stands among top 3 brands besides Thumbs Up and Coke.
According to the Attribute association, flavour and fizz are the most wanted
attributes by the consumers. As per the Brand association, Coca Cola is the
leader, which is then followed by Pepsi.
Suggestions:
Pepsi would need to reposition itself as a brand promising the most important
attribute respondent associate with any cold drink which would in turn increase
the repeat purchase of the brand.
It can leverage its name to other products like Beer, Condom Shampoo &
Apparels if it is considering to diversify.
Majority of the respondents associate Pepsi as a brand as very innovative, thus it
would do well to keep up to that positioning.