Despite rumours of the Godrej Hershey joint venture falling apart, the FMCG company is investing in the revival of its near-dormant beverage brand – Jumpin.
The 20-year-old fruit drink brand, one of the oldest in its portfolio, will now be piggybacking on the company's confectionery distribution chain to gain visibility at retail stores.
Speaking to
Jumpin is pitted against fruit drink brands such as Frooti and Maaza, in the mango segment primarily. Targeting families through kids, the brand has also incorporated Tom & Jerry cartoons on its packs with promise of some free merchandise.
Earlier, with Jumpin not seen much, there had been much speculation about it being put on the block. But Godrej has silenced this with its new plans.
According to Mr Kanchan, since the company has introduced higher prices for the confectionery portfolio, it has been able to sell it in more outlets and also have Jumpin ride on the same distribution.
According to an analyst, “Godrej is now trying to bring back its dormant brand of Jumpin, much along the same lines on what Pepsi and Coke have been doing with their old brands. Besides, Godrej has realised that since the Hershey portfolio is not coming in, it might as well revive its own brands.”
However, Godrej has restricted its fruit nectar brand of Xs to the modern trade outlets.
Confectionery chain
Meanwhile, Godrej has introduced a new confectionery brand Choco Rocko, under which it retails pricier sweets, ranging from Rs 2-5. Earlier, it only had confectionery in the 50-paise price point. The premium sweets have enabled it to get a foothold in more outlets.
“All this time, the bulk of our confectionery was catering to customers down the population strata. But now with Choco Rocko, we have higher price points by which we can get better distribution in the A class towns,'' said Mr Kanchan.
Today, the confectionery brands reach out to 5 lakh-plus outlets.