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Articles
Hometown Hype for Nantucket Nectars
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By Jane L. Levere
Backed by the resources of Cadbury Schweppes, its new parent, Nantucket Nectars has introduced three summer flavors and an advertising campaign to promote them.
The juice company has produced seasonal cider drinks each fall since 1999, says Jeff Bucalo, marketing director of Nantucket Nectars, which was bought in March from Ocean Spray Cranberries and minority shareholders; however, he adds, it has never produced summer drinks before.
"We hadn't come out with a new product line in close to two years, and the beverage industry is all about innovation," Mr. Bucalo says. "When the sale was final, we needed to come out with a new line, and we had the resources."
The three summer flavors - watermelon lemonade, lemon limeade and Maine berry punch - are being sold only this month and next in Nantucket Nectars' top 11 markets: Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Detroit, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington.
Nantucket Nectars, now based in Cambridge, Mass., makes an additional 30 flavors year-round and distributes them in 40 states.
The company, which had about $60 million in sales last year, up 8 percent over the previous year, is one of the smallest manufacturers in the fruit beverage category, which includes 100 percent fruit juices and fruit juice drinks. The Beverage Marketing Corporation, a research and consulting firm, estimates that Snapple, which is also owned by Cadbury Schweppes and is the largest company in the category, sold more than seven times as many fruit beverages as Nantucket Nectars did last year.
Tom First and Tom Scott, two Brown University classmates, started Nantucket Nectars in Nantucket in 1990. Mr. Bucalo says the company's advertising has traditionally featured the founders, who call themselves "juice guys."
Occasionally, the ads include their relatives.
The campaign for the summer drinks takes a new tack, however. Its two 60-second radio spots - which will run through August in Boston, Philadelphia, Denver, Chicago, Washington and Baltimore -- not only feature the company's founders but also people they call "local Nantucket legends." These include the owner of a golf club on the island, its police chief, the owner of a popular bar and other shop owners.
In both ads, the founders and the Nantucket residents kid around and discuss summer on the island and their favorite Nantucket Nectars flavors. There is folksy guitar music in the background, as well as sounds of sea gulls, water splashing and the clanging bell of the local lighthouse.
"This is the first time we've brought actual people from Nantucket into our advertising," Mr. Bucalo says. "We had never before embraced the island in our advertising, and the people who helped bring the company to where it is today."
Mr. Bucalo says Nantucket Nectars favors radio advertising for many reasons: First, it is less expensive than television.
Second, most of the company's sales are through convenience stores. These stores' customers usually drive there; Mr. Bucalo says, "Radio is a great medium for a car."
Third, Mr. Bucalo says radio gives Nantucket Nectars the opportunity to participate in local promotions where it can distribute samples of its products. Thus, Nantucket Nectars will be involved in 100 events this summer in or near its top markets to promote the three seasonal flavors, like a triathlon in Folsom, Calif., a memorial race outside of Philadelphia and beach promotions around New England.
Besides the radio advertising, Nantucket Nectars is also running ads that display bottles of the three summer flavors - which have labels that say summertime and depict the island's Fourth of July celebration, and which are, not coincidentally, red, white and purplish blue - on bus shelters and telephone kiosks in Boston and on delivery trucks in New York.
Mr. Bucalo says the budget for the campaign, which was created internally, was $400,000. Last year the company spent a total of $1.5 million on advertising.
Beverage industry analysts generally praise Nantucket Nectars' foray into summer drinks and its campaign to promote them.
Gary Hemphill, senior vice president of the Beverage Marketing Corporation, says it is vital for Nantucket Nectars to expand its product line. "This category requires continuous innovation," he says. "Typical Nantucket Nectars consumers tend to be variety seekers; they like new products and to try new things."
Manny Goldman, a San Mateo, Calif.-based beverage industry consultant, praised the tone of the Nantucket Nectars advertising.
"It's different," he says. "Coke and Pepsi don't feature the local people, they don't have ads like that. You want your own distinctive image if you can get it."
Summer sales, he adds, are more important to companies like Nantucket Nectars than to carbonated soft drink companies, because sales for fruit beverage makers are more dependent on the weather.
For companies like Nantucket Nectars, Mr. Goldman says, "you'd better sell it in the summer, or you'll have a full-year sales problem."
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