Campa Cola: Reviving a Classic Indian Beverage Brand
| Case Code: MKTG471 Case Length: 12 Pages Period: - Pub Date: 2025 Teaching Note: Available |
Price: Rs.300 Organization : Reliance Consumer Products Ltd. Industry :FMCG Countries : United States Themes: Brand Revival, Brand Strategy |
Abstract Case Intro 1 Case Intro 2 Excerpts
Excerpts
Enter Campa Cola
Campa’s roots date back to 1949 when Coca-Cola employed Pure Drinks as its sole distributor in India. Pure Drinks, founded by Sardar Mohan Singh, was Coca-Cola’s largest bottler in India. It operated 12 bottling plants for Coca-Cola and employed 2800 people as of 1977..
Re-Entry of The Giants…Exit Campa
The Indian beverage market started to witness a considerable change with the re-entry of Pepsi Cola and other beverages like 7Up and Miranda from Pepsi in 1989. Pepsi was soon followed by Coca-Cola in 1993. Campa and Parle were expected to offer formidable competition to the American companies. However, with the liberalization of Indian FDI policies, Parle and its brands were acquired by Coca-Cola in 1993..
Growth of Reliance Consumer Products
As of 2023, Reliance Industries was India’s most valuable company and stood in the 88th position in the Fortune 500 list in 2023. Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director of Reliance Industries, was the 13th richest person in the world and Asia’s richest person as of August 2023..
Acquisition of Campa
In August 2022, Reliance Consumer Products acquired Campa for US$ 2.7 million (INR 220 million). According to Samit Sinha from Alchemist Brand Consulting, Reliance did not pay a high price to acquire the brand. Reliance, as one of India’s largest conglomerates, could have launched its own cola and soft drink brand, but it chose to go with Campa for several reasons. Starting a new brand of carbonated beverages was a huge and expensive task..
Campa Gets a New Lease of Life
Campa was relaunched in March 2023 in a brand new avatar. Reliance started off outsourcing Campa’s production. In due course, it planned to open some factories independently or as a joint venture to produce Campa..
A Third Dimension in Cola Wars
Observers compared Reliance’s strategy for Campa with Jio’s strategy to disrupt the mobile telecom. When Jio was launched in 2016, its prices were much below those of other telecom companies. With the attractive talk time offers and mobile internet, Jio attracted several new customers. The launch also witnessed loyal customers of other telecom operators like Idea, Vodafone, and Airtel moving to Jio due to its low prices and wide reach. Jio quickly garnered a considerable market share and became the top company in the sector..
What is the next move?
Krishnakumar was drawing up a strategy for Campa in India. He consulted several experts who gave their opinion about Campa and its probable course of action..
Exhibits
Exhibit I: History of Coca-Cola and Pepsi
Exhibit II: Poster of Campa Cola*
Exhibit III: Indian Soft Drinks Market
Exhibit IV: Campa-Cola - Competitors
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