Can The Rebranded 5Alive Save the Day?

Like the human life cycle, longevity is also an important issue among brand experts. How a brand can be resuscitated when in ‘declining health’ or when having ‘heart attack’ has always been a matter of concern in the branding and marketing world. 5Alive was once a leader in the Nigerian fruit juice market. After losing its enviable no 1 position in the market, the brand repositioned recently apparently to reclaim its influence. Ralph Tathagata examines the possibility.

Life and business seem to be made up of series of cycles. Brands achieve prominence by not just surviving these cycles, but by re-inventing themselves in the turbulent market place. In order words, for brands to be relevant, owners and custodians should, as matter of necessity, renew the experience they offer their customers to meet growing needs and values.

Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) brands have a predictable product life cycle. As a result, they constantly update and reinvent themselves long before customers get tired of the existing models.  To surmount the ups and downs of the market place, existing brand leaders have had to re-invent themselves at one point or the other.

5Alive fruit juice, a brand from the stable of Coca Cola Nigeria Plc, recently re-introduced the rebranded version of its fruit drink in the market – a move market watchers consider overdue given the fact that the brand has long lost its hold on leadership as far as the local market was concerned.

However, the brand owners maintain that the re-launched 5Alive was influenced by the new technology the company just adopted.

Experts have also alleged that 5Alive was only following the dictate of fashion by trying to imitate competitions like Funman and Chi in terms of physical look and feel. But Kehinde Ebiye, Channel Development Manager, Nigerian Bottling Company (NBC) disproves this.

“It is not true that we are merely following the current trends simply to register our brand presence in the market. The primary rationale behind the rebranding of 5Alive is to keep in front of the taste of our changing customers,” she says.

There is a market rule that for a new or repackaged product to hit the airwaves to create awareness, an adequate shelf presence is very necessary. M2 market survey carried out to ascertain the availability of the rebranded 5Alive reveals that the brand conspicuously lacks shelf presence while the marketing campaign is going on. Meanwhile, Ebiye admits the brand’s shelf absence in strategic points of the market, especially in Lagos State, and attributes it to 5Alive distributors.

“I think the reason why our customers have not started seeing our repositioned 5Alive is due to our distributors’ decision. And the reason might not be unconnected with the need to exhaust the old brands in the market,” she reveals.

She also expresses optimism that the recent rebranding exercise has put 5Alive on the way to reclaim its no 1 market position.

History shows that strong brands (no 1) are more profitable. Being the no 3 brand in a category can often mean un-profitability. The difference between the first in the market and the third so often has to do with market share and margin  the readiness of customers to remain loyal and refer others  what experts call brand advocacy or positive word of mouth. And this can hardly be achieved with a third position.

The challenge for 5Alive therefore, is to re-establish and sustain a compelling consumer experience that produces real value for target customers and a strong image for the brand and its reputation. But how far this is going to take the brand can hardly be predicted as history is replete with brands that lost their first positions but could not reclaim them.