COMPANY PROFILE

The origins of Bisleri lie in Italy, and the brand owes its name to founder Felice Bisleri, an Italian
entrepreneur. In India, Bisleri set up a plant in Mumbai for bottling and marketing mineral water,
which was first of its kind in India. However, it did not quite work. Among other reasons, the fact that
the Indian consumer was unprepared to accept bottled mineral water was responsible for its failure.
Consumer mindsets were more geared towards boiling water at home.
In 1969, Parle bought over the' Bisleri' brand. In those days Bisleri water was available in glass bottles.
Parle's taking charge of Bisleri did not make a dramatic difference to the brand's fortunes immediately.
While it did gain in terms of visibility and reach (piggybacking on Parle's existing distribution
network), efforts to expand the bottled water market were not exactly painstaking. Parle at that
particular time was interested in making soda water and not mineral water. There were just minor
initiatives on part of the company for making mineral water as it was not considered to be a very
profitable business at that time a people still considered boiling water to be a safer bet than mineral
water. Moreover they were not ready to pay for a commodity like water which was so abundantly
available.
In 1972-73 Parle changed the packaging of its bottled water to plastic bottles and that significantly
made a difference in the sales. The buyers, then, were mainly the upper class - the trendy people.
In 1993, Coca-Cola bought parles soft drink brands- thums-up, limca etc. While Coca-Cola actually
bought over Parle's beverages, it agreed to a settlement that allowed the multinational to bottle and
distribute Bisleri soda for a time frame of five years. The charge of Bisleri water, however, remained
with Parle. The upsurge in the sales of Bisleri started from this point as Parle sold off its stable of
brands to Coca-Cola. This was the time when its started concentrating on making Bisleri a success in
the domestic mineral water market. The reason why Parle chose to retain the Bisleri name was that
Parle saw a fairly lucrative business of mineral water in Bisleri's equity.
The real shift in companys policy towards mineral water industry came in 1998, although the
conscious efforts had already been started in 1994. This change was primarily because of the fact that
the people, at this time, had started becoming more health conscious.

MANUFACTURING
A quick look at Bisleri's manufacturing reach indicates that it is represented across the country North
accounts for 35% of sales for the industry, West accounts for 30%, South 20% and the East 15%.
In order to be available in untapped areas Bisleri has setup 16 plants located all over the country - threefourths of which are company owned. The balance are run by franchisees. Bisleri has 5 plants in the
North, 5 in the West- two of which were setup in the last year at Ahemdabad and Surat, 4 in the South
and 2 in the East. The company has bottling units located in Chennai, Bangalore, Goa, Calcutta,
Mumbai, Delhi, Jaipur, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Indore and Nepal. The new plants are being set up in
states like Kerala, Orissa, Bihar and North Eastern States, which hitherto have been unexplored by the
company.
It is also changing its production strategy and shifting to a 10-hr production schedule with sudden
increase in demand planned to be met by additional production.
Bisleri has planned to expand its operations by investing Rs 60 crore in the upgradation of facilities.
The 120-bottles per minute (BPM) capacity of the 16 units across the country will be increased to 240
BPM.
Conscious of the environmental implications of its PET bottles, the company is to set up recycling
plants at Delhi and Chennai, each with an outlay of Rs.50m. These will process 500 kg of PET per
hour. The processed material will be an input for polyester yarn manufacturers. In centers other than
Delhi and Chennai, the company will set up crushing units to crush the used PET bottles.
The company's expansion plans will see its water bottling capacity go up from the present 400 million
litres to 500 million litres. Parle Bisleri Limited (PBL) is planning to invest Rs 200 crore to increase its
bottling capacity and double its turnover. The expansion will also increase the number of company's
bottling plants from 16 at present, to 25. The company will set up all the new plants as green field
plants. It doesnt have any intentions to acquire any existing plants.

DISTRIBUTION
It's obvious that availability holds the key to the market. For any product to be successful the
distribution system has to be really good. Large tracts of the country have not been explored by the
national brands,which explains the proliferation of smaller brands.
Bisleris strategy is to build a direct distribution system at an all-India level. Currently, Bisleri
has around 80000 retail outlets in the country with about 12000 each in the Metros of Delhi and
Mumbai. It is intended to increase this number to 10 lakh outlets in order to expand brands
reach.
That means serious investments in company-owned trucks and carts. Parle hopes to double its existing
fleet of 1000 trucks. This would make it the largest fleet owner in the country.
In order to service the home segment, the 5 litre packs are being pushed through the route of Fat
Dealers( wholesale dealers) who are retailers as well as stockist and serve as supply points from
where customer can pick the required quota. The customer can call the fat dealer and place order for
home delivery of the 5 litre pack. 180 of these dealers are already functional, and more are in the
process of being appointed. "The idea is to make Bisleri all-pervasive,".
The company plans to have its own distribution network in places where it has its own plants.
Franchisees would manage the distribution in their respective areas of operation.

PACKAGING
Variety is spice of life. Today for any business organisation to be successful it has to provide its
customers with the differentiated product that is a value buy for them. In order to cater to the changing
needs of the customers the business has to continuously come out with the variants of the product so
that it can target the maximum segments.
Today, Acqua Minerals offers a variety of packaging options:150 ml, 300 ml, 500 ml, 1 litre, 2 litre, 5
litre, and 20 litre. The 5-litre bottles account for 35 per cent of sales showing a growing health concern
among the Indian society. 1 litre bottles account for 30 percent of the share, whereas the 500 ml bottles
taking up 15 per cent. The remaining sizes share the rest of the contribution.
The 2 litres bottles were introduced to slowly and steadily replace the conventional 1 litre bottles. This
would give them an advantage over others. The 500-ml category was re-focused as a trendy product,
targeted at the teenage crowd and for the roadside consumers.
Acqua Minerals is currently a supplier to Indian Airlines with 125-ml cups. The five-litre packs,
launched in December 1999 in Goa, are currently available in six cities, including Delhi, Bombay and
Bangalore, and sell over 5,000 bottles a day.

Following Is A Quick Overview Of The Various Packaging Options Provided By

Bisleri Along With The Target Consumers:
Size of the bottle

Price

per Target consumer

bottle
500 ml

Rs. 7

Teenagers, college students and roadside consumers. Also aimed

to supply to the Indian Railways.

1 litre

Rs. 10

General consumers and travelers.

1.2 litres

Rs. 12

Consumers demanding a little more water at just a little more

price.

2 litres

Rs. 18

Small offices, shopkeepers, households

5 litres

Rs. 20

Households, institutes, offices, retail shops, showrooms

20 litres

Rs. 40

Households, institutes, offices, schools and colleges

In addition to the above mentioned sizes, Bisleri also provides 150 ml cups for Indian Airlines
travellers, and 300 ml cups for marriages and parties.

% share of pack sizes in sales

10
500 ml

351 litre

15
2 litres

10

5 litres

30

others

The following pie chart clearly shows

the sales wise distribution of the various pack sizes

i.e
xe

CHALLENGES IN FRONT OF THE BISLERI

The company had the share of more than 50% of the national market. But now the share of the
company is going down, in the pie of the national market. Until recently there was competition with
only the unorganized sector. Now, having drowned out by the small-scale emulators with a 40% share
of the national market, company now is limbering up for another contest from the multinationals.
Other than the financial constraints up to an extent, the company has to focus on the marketing
management of the product. In light of the challenge in front of the company and its current strengths
and position, we have incorporated the marketing mix to counter the marketing strategies of the
competitors by developing its own marketing strategies.

MARKETING MIX OF BISLERI

The set of controllable tactical tools- product, price, promotion, and place (4 Ps) that the firm blends to
produce the response it wants, in the target markets.

The 4Ps

PRODUCT
The main product of the company is the mineral water by the name of Bisleri Mineral water. Other than
mineral water the company has also the soda water under its brand name called the Bisleri Soda Water.
The concept of bottled mineral water was introduced in India, first by Bisleri, and that is the reason, it
has become a generic name for the mineral water. Bisleri has become a perfect synonym of the mineral
water for the Indian consumers.
The main challenge facing the company or any other player in this mineral water industry is that
there is no scope of invention and innovation in the product, which can be added as the additional
benefits of the product.
It is just water after all. This is what the Indian customers think of the bottled water. If we are talking
about a product like television we can think that the innovations could provide extra benefits derived
from the product. For example other than its core usage the product can provide for Internet
facilities using conversion.

VARIANTS OF THE PRODUCT

The company is offering wide variants of the product. These include the different quantities available of
the product. Starting from the Jumbo pack (18 lt. Jar) to the 500 ml. Bottles. In between, it also has 1
lt., 2 lt. and 5 lt. Packs.
In terms of another variant the company has also come up with small glasses of 300ml. that are priced
at Rs.3. per glass. The company has introduced these glasses for the social occasions like marriages and
get together. This again is very competitive in the price field and also the customer is getting a
convenient product with the benefit of purity at such a low price. Now the customers would not have to
drink impure water served in unhygienic glasses.

PACKAGING
The packaging of the product is an important factor in the marketing of the product. The packaging of
the product was absolutely accepted by the customers till now. But it has been along time the company
has changed the packaging of 1ltr. mineral water bottle.
One of the competitors of the company, Pepsi, has mineral water by the name of Aquafina. The
packaging of the Aquafina is creating the need for the company to change its packaging and
make it look sturdier. The brand Aquafina has been targeted towards the youth and that is why
they have made the bottle look more hip. Bisleri would have to give a new look to its product to
stopping Aquafina from snatching its market share.
To conclude: Looking at the facts above the company according to me should pay attention on the
packaging of the product so that it is able to attract more customers.
Second, the company should go for Brand Extension. The company should take the benefit of the
brand name it has created over a long period of time. It can introduce new products in the
category of beverages.

PLACE
Place stands for the company activities that make the product available to the target customers. To make
the product available to the target consumers a good distribution network has to be there to support the
good quality of the product. Here in the case of the mineral water industry the distribution network is
the important factor in being competitive and the catch lies in making water available to maximum
number of places in the country.
DISTRIBUTION NETWORK:
The small-scale players built their sales by piggybacking on the generic category built up by Bisleri.
Its a battle that Bisleri can win by sheer distribution muscle. One of the reason why Bisleri is
running strong in this industry is its strong distribution network built over the years since its
inception. Further, Bisleri plans to increase its distribution network over the southern and
eastern region, where it is behind popular brands like Team in Tamil Nadu and in Andhra
Pradesh.
Conclusion : It is very important for the companies to understand that winners would be those who
will endure a strong regional presence. Therefore the companies should take some immediate
actions to make presence in the whole country and more important is every hook and corner of
the states where they are present today.
PRICE

PROMOTION
Modern marketing calls for more than just developing a good product, pricing it attractively, and
making it available to the target customers, companies must also communicate with their customers,
and what they communicate should not be left to chance.
A Companys total marketing communications program- called its Promotion Mix consists of
specific blend of advertising, personal selling, sales promotion, and public relations tools that the
company uses to pursue its advertising and marketing objectives.

PROMOTIONAL ACTIVITY
Advertising Campaign of Bisleri before Launch of Acquafina & Kinley
Every brand needs a good ad campaign to establish itself in the market. So it becomes very imperative
to look at various ad campaigns that Bisleri undertook to build itself as a brand.
1. Bisleri started its game-plan with the punch-line of Pure and Safe and used the same
catch-line for advertising. But with the advent of many new players, all claiming the
purity, it became very imperative for Bisleri to differentiate its product so as to stand out
in the market. Bisleri found the answer in sealed cap bottles. It claimed 100% purity.

2. The ad showed a milk-man and a child showering their buffaloes and filling the so-called
mineral water bottles with the same water and packing them with the simple polythene
seal and the consumer not knowing about the purity of the water he is drinking. Next clip
shows the Bisleri bottles being sealed with plastic caps and ensuring the purity of water.
The ad did work for Bisleri and it got its much needed product differentiation.

3. In 2000, some giant brands like Pepsi and coca-cola entered the mineral water industry
with a big bang. Bisleri now had a big threat of maintaining its market cap. While Coca-cola
introducing its brand Kinley as a health care product, Pepsi projected Aquafina as something
as pure as Your own body.Pepsi targeted the young generation and introduced Aquafina as a
fancy product to carry. The ad campaign of Aquafina emphasized as 70% of your body is
water and thus give your body the purest water. The ad showed young vibrant models and

created the atmosphere of youthfulness. Water, Pepsi claimed, was no longer a simple
beverage, but was something highly fashionable. They complimented it by giving their
bottles an attractive look. This soon caught the eye of the consumer. All these factors made
Pepsi the biggest upcoming competitor of Bisleri .
4. Where as Kinley lagged behind the race, showing a doctor advising a family to take Kinley
for pure water not a very attractive ad campaign.
5. Bisleri, to counter-attack the new Feel-Young fever had to even bolder steps. They first
changed their base-line from Pure and Safe to Play Safe. They tried a brand new ad
campaign to catch the fancy of consumer.
6. The new ad showed a young romantic couple on a marooned island, when the girl
seductively attracts the guy and he follows her in trance. The moment he gets hold of her,
she whispers something in his ears. The next few shots show the guy looking for something
in frenzycan not find it.rushes towards the chemists shop.buys something
(keeping the audience in suspenseor rather implicitly pointing for ). The girl
opens it and.POOF.takes out a bottle of Bisleri and quenches her thirst. Caption:
Play Safe. This campaign was to catch the attention of youth and a new Indian society
which is supposed to be not-so-prudish. Thus Bisleri has taken a very bold step. The T.V.
ads have been complimented by print ads also. The campaign is reported to be doing
pretty well.

Advertisement Campaign of Competitors

A drop-dead gorgeous body flexes its muscles on the screen. This starkly arresting black and white
image is then splashed with water. A voice-over informs you that 70 per cent of your body is water.
Why not give it the purest ... Aquafina Bottled water from Pepsi.
This kind of advertisement campaign used by the competitors is giving the company a tough time. The
competitor, Pepsi, is utilizing the brand image built by it and is again targeting the Generation X
maintaining the company image.
Its an unusual ad for this category. Till now, most marketers have focussed on educating the consumer
on how bottled water is a safer option, with the lead, of course, taken by the popular national brand
Bisleri.
But Pepsi chose to junk this approach, and it could well afford to. Bisleri, after all, had already done
most of the hard work needed to build the bottled water category. What Pepsi needed was to establish
its brand in this crowded, fragmented market. Our task was made easier because Bisleri had
concentrated on educating the consumer, instead of building its own brand values, says Rohit Ohri,
vice president and client services director, Hindustan Thompson Associates Limited (HTA).
"We wanted the imagery to position Aquafina as a youthful, premium and fun brand, says Vibha
Rishi, executive director, Pepsi. The idea, she says, was not to objectify bodies so that one could drool
over them. Instead, we are talking about your body and the need for each one to take care of his
or her body. The ad copy, which spoke of the water content in our bodies, was actually trying to
establish how important water was to our well- being and how we need to continuously replenish it.
While the thinking was clear that the imagery had to be built in and around purity, HTA did toy with a
couple of other ideas and situations. Initially, the idea was to focus more strongly on the fun aspect and
create a story line complete with a smart idea and a twist at the end. But we gave it up because we
felt that the story might take the mind away from the purity aspect that was a must to highlight,
says Ohri.
So HTA adopted a minimalist approach and created a film with little clutter and no props, which tried to
capture the emotion of feeling good about yourself. While the film and the imagery are completely
the work of HTA, the strategic thinking comes from the Mother Company in the US.
Aquafina, in fact, is the largest-selling bottled water brand in the US with a 12 per cent market
share, and India is the first country outside of the US where Aquafina is being bottled.
Even in the US, the ad talks of the percentage of water in our bodies, but the handling is a little more
serious. For example, the film will show an emotional moment where someone starts crying, and
then you will hear the voice-over, 85 per cent of your eyes are water. There is no internal law

that forces us to follow the international positioning. But seeing the quality of thinking that has
gone into this, we decided to stay with this positioning, though the statements here are quite
different, explains Rishi.
Aquafina, like all offerings that come from the Pepsi stable, also imbibes the core values of the mother
brand. It addresses the Pepsi-user base, largely the youth, and like Pepsi it is also being positioned
as a hip brand. But Aquafina is a lot that Pepsi is not. It is a little bit older, mature and affluent, and
not as mass based as Pepsi.
Pepsis role in the communication is that it is the source of credibility for the product and, of course,
establishes the youthfulness of the brand. But Aquafina is a brand in its own right and with each
piece of communication, its personality will emerge feels Ohri.
But while Aquafina is being given a distinct identity, it is also being targeted at the Pepsi consumer and
is addressing their need for safe and reliable drinking water. Will this not cannibalize Pepsi sales?
Water does eat into the cola market, agrees Rishi, but we cant build a business for Pepsi
based on peoples lack of access to safe drinking water.
How can any business be built on deprivation?" Both will have to co-exist and carve a market out for
themselves. And while Pepsi targets the 18-25 year olds, Aquafina also includes the 30-somethings
together with the college crowd. Like Pepsi, Aquafina too is looking to command a premium without
being unaffordable.
The swirl shaped PET bottle resembles the Pepsi family and is sturdier and more hip than most
others in the category that take their design cues, it seems, from the one liter refined oil bottles in
the market. The decision to break the norm and come up with a 750 ml pack size was more driven by
the fact that water is fundamentally consumed on the go and the 750 ml size is easy to carry around.
It is ideal for an half-an-hour in the sun, one liter gets too bulky, says Rishi. Pepsis future
plans at the moment dont include coming up with size variants. They have also ruled out the
possibility of catering to the bulk market, which actually constitutes 30 per cent of the total bottled
water market that stands at 70 million liters annually, and is growing anywhere between 30 and 50 per
cent.

Pepsi, obviously, is looking for a big slice of this burgeoning market, but as Subroto Chattopadhyay,
executive vice president, marketing, Pepsi, says, We have a building blocks approach, first we have to
build the brand, and then the volumes.
Bisleri is tackling the situation by building the brand on the purity plank. Akin to brand building in soft
drinks, an aggressive print-and-TV campaign is being backed by hoarding, point-of-sale material, and
every interface with the consumer is being used as an opportunity to reinforce the message. For
instance, all the vehicles used for supply have been painted in bright blue, bear the Bisleri logo and
sport catchy baselines like Play Safe.

ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN
While designing the advertisement campaign, it is necessary to keep in mind the opinion leaders.
Youth are the opinion leaders of the present time. And thus it becomes necessary to design the
campaign keeping the youth in mind. The opinion leaders would further trickle down the
message to the less active members of the society.
This is exactly what Bisleri is doing. Bisleri has started an advertisement campaign stressing the
point of purity and flaunting the patent right the company has over the breakaway seal. The
company has tried to put the message across louder, by using the ad campaign that catches the eye of
everyone, specially the youth. Otherwise, we find no reason of making an advertisement of
mineral water look like an advertisement of condoms.

MESSAGE CONTENT OF THE CAMPAIGN:

Bisleri that was looking for a differentiator decided to make the breakaway seal the symbol of
purity. The tamper-proof seal was developed, around which the communication was woven. The
campaign stresses the safety provided by the breakaway seal by illustrating the ease with which
conventionally sealed bottles can be refilled and recycled.
The objective with the campaign would have been to highlight the tamper-proof seal and create doubt
in the consumers mind of the purity of the other brands. That is, Bisleri is the only one that
guarantees purity and keeps you Safe

CONCLUSION
New advertisement campaign of Bisleri is eye catching. This is what the company should do. And
also the company should make the message clearer to the customers that it has the patent right
over the breakaway seal.
Apart from a high dose of investments on expanding bottling capacities and an ad budget thats risen
six-fold over last year, if Bisleri wants to penetrate every possible segment of the market, it can do
that by introducing more pack sizes and establishing the brand strongly with trendy new
packaging.
Apart from creating consumer pull with campaign, the company, to increase its sales would have to do
the sales push as well. For that it would have to give the retailers and other stockiest high trade
margins and incentives for keeping the product. This is very important in case of this product
because consumers would take up what is available to them at ease and whatever retailer is giving.
Bisleri has introduced attractive schemes to push the 5ltr. bottles and margins are as high as Rs 8.
Detractors feel that, in the long run, retailers will not push this. They say its a kind of dart board
game. You have to throw again and again till you hit bulls eye.