Soft drink est Play registers big market growth

In a press release, the est brand said it was “moving ahead with four marketing strategies”. These include a refresgh of the brand image; launching its “drinking bingsu” product in two flavours in a colourful shrink-wrapped package; introducing two “cool” presenters, Ten and Taeyoung, from the popular Korean boy band NCT; and increasing its online marketing communications budget by 100 per cent.
These four strategies will drive “est Play” in a strong bid to achieve two-digit sales growth by 2018, the company said.
Jesdakorn Ghosh, senior vice president of Thai Drinks Co said: “Over the past few years, est Play has engaged more new-generation fans while bringing cola drinkers over to the flavored CSD market, currently worth Bt15 billion, through our concept ‘Mischievous Fun’ communications message.
“est Play is Thailand’s first brand to offer the market a uniquely innovative fizzy soft drink that combines two harmonious fruit flavors. est Play has a proven track record of increasing its popularity every year, notably with est Play Grapeberry, [which is] est Play’s best-seller with the strongest 2-digit sales growth in the Flavored CSD market.
“This defies the market trend, which actually showed negative growth of -8.9 per cent. The success of ‘est Play Grapeberry’ significantly helped to drive 11.6 per cent sales growth of est Play.”
“In terms of brand health, est Play scored higher in all areas, including ‘frequent drink score’ increasing from 28 to 53, ‘brand for the new generation’ increasing from 53 to 62, and ‘outstanding brand with innovation’ increasing from 47 to 63,” she added.