Snapple Essay

1.From 1972 to 1993, why did Snapple flourish when so many small start-up premium fruit drinks stayed small or disappeared?

First of all, natural fruit juices were quite popular in these years. Also, Snapple expended its product range by adding carbonated drinks, fruit-flavored iced teas, diet juices, seltzers etc.

Even though many of the new product lines were failure, successful products were highly profitable which prevented overall loss. Then, Snapple started using ads. The actor, Ivan Lendl mispronounced the name of the brand several times and surprisingly people found it appealing.

Afterwards, the company hired Carl Gilman, previously worked for Seven-Up, as a supervisor of sales and marketing which was a wise operation. Additionally, Kirshenbaum advertising agency, used a spokesmodel for the brand that made a huge effect on sales. Finally, the company promoted two famous radio programs.

2.Now look at the period from 1994 to 1997. Did Quaker make an error in buying Snapple or did they just manage it badly?

Snapple was an excellent company with a great potential. Quaker just managed it badly. It has some mistakes on the marketing plan of Snapple. First of all, Quaker tried to manage Snapple as it manages Gatorade. Yet, although Gatorade was a lifestyle brand, Snapple was a fashion brand which is a totally different area and needed to be focused on particularly. Moreover, Quaker tried to make an agreement with distributers for both Gatorade and Snapple. Which was another failure. Finally, Quaker changed bottling with larger sizes as it did for Gatorade, but failed it again. People had been already using the “32-ounce bottles” which was satisfying their needs by then. Needlessly, going from 32-ounce bottles to 64-ounce ones was a misunderstanding of customer’s needs and as expected, it resulted in a drop in sales and couldn’t be