Snapple Marketing Success Story

Snapple was founded in 1972 by Leonard Marsh, Arnold Greenberg, and Hyman Golden when they began selling pure fruit drinks to health food stores in New York's Greenwich Village (Berkowitz, 1997, A44). The company began as UAF, for Unadulterated Food Products Inc., which included a health food store in New York and a building maintenance company (Berkowitz, 1996, 1D). The three partners came up with a carbonated apple juice and called it Snapple for "snappy apple." They paid a Texas man $500 to give up rights to the name. The apple soda failed.

But in 1979 the partners started signing up distributors for Snapple juice drinks, and in 1987 they created a hugely popular iced tea that was bottled while it was still hot (Berkowitz, 1996, 1D). They modeled their wide-mouth bottles on a variation of Gatorade containers. A now-defunct small New York ad agency came up with the slogan "Made From the Best Stuff on Earth." With the help of quirky advertising, Snapple sales soared, reaching $674 million in 1994 as dozens of flavors and diet versions were added and Snapple distribution was expanded across the country.

According to one of the founders Mr. Greenberg, "We were street guys; we didn't go to Harvard. We went more with guts. We would buck the market surveys" (Berkowitz, 1996, 1D). Yet, while "Snapple was the first company to explode on the 'New Age' scene... by the time they sold, the market s

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the majority of Americans away from more-familiar soft drinks. Marketing Objectives Snapple's market objective was and still is brand identification and brand building (Stirring the porridge..., 1994, 62). The reason this is important is that, properly cared for, a brand can be a global symbol that can bestow credibility and attract instant attention in a new country, a new category, a new industry. Snapple had achieved this by starting the new category, "New Age Drinks." Snapple, however, built its brand position almost as a "counter-brand" enlisting the consumer and the distriutor network in its quest for success. Snapple's strategy is similar to others in the tradition of advertising self-deprecation: Volkswagen, Burger King and, especially, Avis. A powerful part of the strategy is that Snapple does not appear to take itself too seriously and the marketing remains refreshing. Research confirms that "brand shoppers" spend three to four times more on groceries than do private-label shoppers. To analysts, they would explain why Snapple was not nearly as vulnerable as the major bottlers to private labels: Snapple, while it commands a premium for its new age positioning, does not use its brand to grossly overcharge consum
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Some common words found in the essay are:
STOCK Figures, Market Share, Quaker Oats, Cocktail Pricing, Stuff Earth, Spray Cranberries, Products Inc, ANALYSIS Strengths, Gatorade's Snapple's, Lee Snapple, iced tea,  , flavored iced, flavored iced tea, lemon flavored, lemon flavored iced, kiwi strawberry, pink lemonade, kiwi strawberry cocktail, strawberry cocktail, peach flavored iced, peach flavored, raspberry flavored iced, raspberry flavored, 16 oz,
Approximate Word count = 3685
Approximate Pages = 15 (250 words per page)