Maaza@40 sets sights on becoming billion-dollar brand by 2023

As brand Mazaa completes 40 years, Coca-Cola India launches multi-pronged strategies to continue Maaza's leadership in the juice-based beverages market. The plans include value-for-money packs and an alluring advertising campaign on the theme 'Lalaach for aam, Maaza hai naam'

Aanchal Kohli | Mumbai | February 19, 2016

Coca-Cola India plans to make Maaza the country's most widely consumed and most loved mango beverage. The company targets $1 billion retail sales for the juice-based soft drink brand by 2023 and intends to double the manufacturing capacity of the beverage by then. To celebrate 40 years of leadership of the Maaza brand, the company now plans a series of consumer-focused programmes.

Coco-Cola India and its bottlers have announced an ambitious plan to take forward in eight years the brand supremacy that they have achieved over the last 40 years. The announcement is a testimony to the fact that the company considers brand Maaza a strategic bet.

Plans ahead

Coca-Cola India and its bottlers will invest suitably to enhance consumers' love for the brand and launch new, affordable and value-for-money juice packs. They will expand distribution and augment manufacturing capacity to double sales of Maaza by 2023.

Venkatesh Kini

Elaborating on the plans, Venkatesh Kini, President, Coca-Cola India and South West Asia, said in Mumbai on Wednesday, “The resource infusion behind Maaza is part of the $5 billion investment plan of the Coca-Cola Company and its bottlers in India between 2012 and 2020. Our bottlers are setting up five greenfield projects over the next two years – to add to the 57 bottling plants that already exist – at least 50 per cent of which will have manufacturing lines for Maaza. These new lines will help keep pace with the expected increase in demand for Maaza over the next few years.”

The success of Maaza over the last four decades, Kini pointed out, has been in its simplicity and real mango experience in every sip. The Maaza flavour is not made of mango concentrate, but is a blend of premium Alphonso with Totapuri mango pulp, sourced locally from some of India's best mango orchards.

“As we embark on this #MakeInIndia mission of turning Maaza into the world's first $1 billion juice drink brand coming out of India, we visualize the multiplier effect that it can have on the agri sector and the food processing industry should we be able to accomplish this mission. The company and its partners were excited about taking up this #MakeInIndia mission,” Kini said.

Coca-Cola India and its bottlers annually procure 70,000 tonnes of mango pulp worth Rs 500 crore. Should Maaza become the first $1 billion juice drink brand in India by 2023, the Coca-Cola system in India will end up procuring more than 1.4 lakh tonnes of mango pulp annually, worth nearly Rs 1,100 crore – which should in turn benefit 100,000 mango growers.

New Mazaa launches

The company has plans to launch new, affordable and value-for-money juice packs. This year the company is introducing the 125 ml Maaza tetra packs priced at Rs 10, in Delhi, Kolkata and Uttar Pradesh, to scale up the single serve, on-the-go consumption of the beverage. “The whole idea is to make the brand reach mass audience at a right price,” explained Kini. “Majority of our business comes from small tetra packs and it will be going to our key growth driver.”

Asim Parekh, Vice-president Technical and Supply Chain, Coca-Cola India, said, “Bottling Maaza from mango pulp instead of fruit concentrate requires high technology and quality parameters since fruit pulp is sensitive to microbiological contamination and climate changes. We are, therefore, planning in advance by installing juice filling lines in 50 per cent of the greenfield sites that our bottlers will establish.”

“We are also cognizant of the low mango productivity per hectare challenge in India, which is estimated at six tonnes per hectare while that of Brazil is 16 tonnes per hectare. Along with Jain Irrigation, we are betting big on UHDP to bridge the challenge of mango pulp supply,” added Parekh.

Evolution of Mazaa campaigns

Coca-Cola India will be rolling out a series of initiatives in Project Unnati, which will include consumer led digital engagement campaigns and organizing special tours for mango enthusiasts to mango orchards to see what goes into the making of Maaza. The company also plans to scale up Project Unnati to augment the impact of modern agri-practices for a larger number of mango growers.

Maaza's brand new campaign, designed by Leo Burnett, revolves around a new slogan, 'Laalach for aam? Maaza hai naam'. The brand campaigns for Maaza have traditionally been interesting and innovative. The tradition began with that old catchy slogan, 'Taaza mango, Maaza mango', followed by 'Maaza you've really got the juice' in the 1990s.

In the years between 2002 and 2006 came the tagline 'Yaari-dosti, taaza-Maaza'. The years 2007 and 2008 saw the brand revert to its initial theme, 'Taaza mango, Maaza mango'. A new slogan evolved around 2009 and 2010 and the brand mantra was 'Maaza lao aam ki pyaas bhujao'. In 2011 Maaza reached out to consumers with the line, 'Maaza jaldi kya hai'.

Between 2012 and 2015 the Maaza advertisements highlighted the emotions of mango lovers with the line 'har mausam aam'. The new campaign takes that legacy forward this year to promote the brand through stories of consumers and how they crave for mangoes.

Triumphs and challenges

Speaking of the growth plans of the brand, Kini said, “Firstly, if we see an average earning consumer in India consumes one pack of Maaza in a month, our target would be to increase that consumption, or at least maintain it. Secondly, only 20 per cent of the entire consumer pie has tasted Maaza in these 40 years and the target is to add that 80 per cent.”

A journey that takes 40 years is long, so we asked Kini to share some of the highlights and challenges that the brand has faced over these 40 years. “The first highlight was to bring in new ways of making the drink better,” he said. “The second was to launch the PET bottle and the third was to launch some innovative campaigns to create awareness and reach. Our campaigns like 'Har mausam aam' have worked really well for us.”

According to Kini, the company's biggest challenge was and still is to make the brand widely available at even remote places and at an affordable price.

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