Dr Pepper Snapple Looking to Score with Tens

The new Dr Pepper Ten “It’s Not For Women” marketing campaign gained the new 10-calorie soft drink brand some notoriety due to its overt male-centric focus, but the risky campaign paid off.

According to Plano, Texas-based Dr Pepper Snapple Group (DPSG), Dr Pepper Ten made up nearly 6 percent of Dr Pepper sales during its test period last year and there are early indicators that the brand is performing well since its Oct. 10 national launch.

While the playful “for men only” marketing campaign got tongues wagging, the folks in Plano insist it’s the taste of Dr Pepper Ten—designed to mimic the flavor of full-calorie Dr Pepper—along with the guilt-free 10 calories that has excited consumers.

“Dr Pepper Ten is a great-tasting product that delivers on the full-calorie soda experience that so many traditional diet [sodas] are lacking. In addition, we created great awareness for Dr Pepper Ten with a tongue-in-cheek ad campaign that has everyone talking,” says Tony Jacobs, DPSG vice president of marketing.

Now DPSG wants to replicate that success with low-calorie versions of five other popular soft drinks in its portfolio—7UP, Sunkist, A&W, Canada Dry and RC Cola. Starting as early as this month, DPSG will be testing 7UP Ten, Sunkist Ten, A&W Ten and Canada Dry Ten in Columbus, Ohio, Des Moines, Iowa and central Pennsylvania. The company also will test RC Ten, a cola, in Chicago, Evansville, Ind. and Des Moines.

The company said the new Ten soft drinks will be marketed to a broader audience than Dr Pepper Ten, as it will target men and women between the ages of 25 and 49. And the company has made no secret of the fact that it is targeting consumers who moved away from carbonated soft drinks due to the high calories, but don’t like the taste of traditional diet soft drinks.

“(The Ten products) taste great and our research shows that our consumers are looking for great tasting, low-calorie options as well as a range of flavors. There’s also a significant consumer population that enjoys regular soft drinks, but as they age, they are starting to watch their waistline. Our new 10-calorie offerings give lapsed CSD users a great-tasting reason to come back to the category,” Jacobs says.

The concept of a “mid-calorie” or reduced-calorie soft drink that hits somewhere between regular, full-calorie sodas and diet sodas isn’t entirely new. Pepsi XL—the ‘X’ stood for excellent taste and the ‘L’ for less sugar—hit the market back in 1995 as a way to appeal to consumers who wanted less sugar and fewer calories, but didn’t want to sacrifice taste. Pepsi XL fizzled in test runs.

Then 2004 brought the competition between Coke’s C2 and Pepsi Edge. Both were positioned as mid-calorie sodas and both companies put major marketing dollars behind the brand launches, although both eventually faltered due to consumers giving a thumbs-down to the taste, which was not close enough to trademark Coke or Pepsi. C2 and Pepsi Edge were formulated using various combinations of sugar or high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) and no-calorie artificial sweeteners.

Beverage market experts insist that mid-calories may succeed this time around where others failed due to improved sweetener and flavor innovation.

“Times have changed. Both the technology that goes into the product is different and consumers are a little different today. The (10-calorie) concept reduces calories with little compromise on taste,” Gary Hemphill, managing director at Beverage Marketing Corporation, says.

Dr Pepper Ten was formulated using HFCS along with zero-calorie sweeteners aspartame and acesulfame potassium (ace-K). DPSG plans to use the same sweetener system with the five other Ten products.

Dr Pepper Ten is not alone in the new mid-calorie arena, as Pepsi rolled out Pepsi Next, a new mid-calorie Pepsi variant with 60 calories per can, in test markets this past summer. The beverage giant says it plans to roll out Pepsi Next nationally in April. Pepsi was able to cut the sugar by 60 percent by combining HFCS with aspartame, sucralose and ace-K.

While cannibalization is always a concern with new beverage variations, Hemphill says the key to success is whether a new product boosts a company’s overall soft drink sales.

Carbonated soft drinks have progressively been losing market share to other, in many cases “healthier,” beverage categories, such as bottled water and ready-to-drink tea. Even diet soft drinks have seen sales declines the past four years.

 “Consumers want healthier refreshment,” Hemphill says. “‘Healthier’ means different things to different people. However most consumers would agree that fewer calories is a move in the right direction. The diet segment of CSDs seems to have hit a wall and the reduced-calorie concept may give it a jolt.”