Revamping Rasna - A Marketing Strategy Overhaul Saga

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Rasna Wakes Up to the Challenge Pioma finally decided to extend Rasna's brand portfolio and launched a pre-sweetened mix-and-drink product in 1996. Targeted at the upper end of the market, Rasna International was a nutritious and vitamin-enriched version of the regular Rasna SDC version. This was followed by the launch of Rasna Royal, positioned as a vitamin-enriched version of Rasna. It was targeted at health-conscious consumers who did not prefer Rasna SDC on account of its synthetic image (that is usage of synthetic colors and artificial flavors). These two products were priced at the higher end, as against the 'low price' policy followed by Rasna for the other products. The sales of Rasna Royal did not pick up from the very beginning. Analysts attributed its failure to the strong positioning of Rasna SDC as a cost-effective drink. While consumers were willing to bear the inconvenience of preparing the SDC version on account of its lower cost, they were unwilling to do so for Rasna Royal as they had paid a higher price for it (Rasna Royal was priced Rs 4 higher than the SDC version). Eventually, the company had to discontinue Rasna Royal.

On the other hand, Rasna International became quite successful, primarily because it did not need any preparation. Commenting on the analysts forecasts that Rasna International might not succeed given the high pricing of the product, Khambatta said, "Contrary to common perception, Rasna International has done exceedingly well and has created a market segment for pre-sweetened fortified soft drinks." By 1999, Rasna International's sales accounted for an estimated 15% of the Rasna's total turnover of Rs 650 million, even as SDC's contribution kept declining. In summer 1999, Rasna also went against its tradition of launching 'one-new-flavour per season' and launched two new flavours, Rasna Yorker (Yorker) and Rasna Aqua Fun (Aqua Fun). The company launched these products in order to exploit the Cricket World Cup fever. Kapil Dev was brought in to endorse Rasna Yorker. Though Yorker succeeded moderately, Aqua Fun was a dismal failure. The failure of Aqua Fun was attributed mainly to its blue color, which was not readily accepted by the Indian consumer in the food products segment. Pioma's efforts at broadening its product portfolio continued with the launch of Oranjolt in 2000, an aerated fruit drink, available in 1.5 litre PET bottles. The brand, launched in selected outlets, failed to attract customers and soon had to be withdrawn. Commenting on Oranjolt's failure, Khambatta said "Oranjolt was never meant to be an aerated drink and it was just, one in the range of innovations that Rasna constantly did." However, he agreed that Oranjolt's failure was a result of certain inherent product problems. It was common practice for many Indian retailers to switch their shop refrigerators at night. This resulted in quality problems, as Oranjolt required refrigeration at all times. The short shelf life of the Oranjolt also contributed to its failure as the company failed to set up a strong distribution network for the product, which could allow it to replace Oranjolt every three to four weeks. Following its failure, the company sent the product for further improvement at its R&D facility.

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