Soft Drinks and Marketing Mix Strategy Distributing and promoting soft drinks is largely achieved through fairly traditional methods. Promotion is often in magazines and directed towards selected target audiences (usually younger people) although billboard advertising close to schools and colleges is also used. Distribution follows the classical route of wholesaler to retailer with many soft drinks these days being sold direct to large supermarket chains which buy in bulk. The latter prefer on the whole to stock branded labels rather than have their own private label drinks. There are also vending machine operators who buy direct and distribute through thousands of vending machines strategically located in sports centers, colleges, universities and other sites which attract large numbers of young people. Traditionally, Colette Soft Drinks has followed the methods outlined above. However, in recent times it has taken an innovative approach. Six months after launching a fizzy drink called Eau de Nuit, Colette Soft Drinks allowed shops and supermarkets to stock the product. Shop owners expressed surprise saying: 'It's really strangethe kids know all about Eau de Nuit,but we've never heard of it. Now it's flying off the shelves by itself.' Colette's marketing strategy for Eau de Nuit might seem highly unusual. For the first six months it did no advertising and restricted distribution to a handful of popular clubs. Getting the products stocked in these venues required a strategy all of its own. Colette recruited people off the street to be its sales people. They tended to be scruffy, but knew the music, so the clubs took them seriously. Having convinced venues such as France's Ministry of Sound to stock Eau de Nuit, the idea was that its reputation would spread by word of mouth. Ten months after the launch, Eau de Nuit is now being advertised, and distribution includes supermarkets. Colette effectively has two marketing budgets. One is the mass market, but to maintain credibility it has to nurture its original people. Credibility is the most important thing. It is important to gain this sort of credibility as a growing number of consumers are both wary of large companies and extremely sophisticated judges of marketing. A senior market researcher working for a company specializing in youth markets commented that at one time firms used to just put an ad on television next to a particular program or in a particular magazine. Now there are magazines for everything and no one can be sure that they have reached the audience. Because of all this there is a move to alternative ways of promotion and distribution and to alternative agencies.

1: Do you think that marketing mix strategy employed here could be applied equally as well to other products? Why or why not?