Creative Marketing: A Case Study of Bigi Soft Drinks

Rite Foods are creating something of a revolution in 2 huge markets- sausage roll and soft drinks. I am a huge fan of their Rite sausage roll. For me, it has the right texture and filling for its price: N50. Moving on to their soft drinks, Bigi Cola seems to me like Diet coke and their marketing strategy of having more for less- 60cl for N100 is brilliant. Yes, they are not the first to do this, Big Cola was but where they get higher marks from me is the variety they have from Cola, Orange, Apple to Lemon and bottled water. No doubt, they have the big boys, Coke and Pepsi wondering what hit them.

Pepsi had earlier made a decisive move by reverting to its N100 price for its Cola, 7Up and other drinks. Apart from conventional promotional activity like the recent Lagos Marathon it co-sponsored, there is not much room it can play in when it comes to pricing. Coca Cola on its part is trying a multi-faceted approach with the increased promotion of Limca for as low as N50 for the 35cl glass bottle, N70 for the 50cl glass bottle and N100 for the PET bottle. It has also deployed its sophisticated marketing knowledge to brand 60cl bottle of Coke as ‘Bigger Boy’ while reintroducing the 35 cl PET bottle called ‘Solo’ for Coke, Fanta and Sprite at N100.

One thing that Rite did before introducing Bigi to the market was to advertise it on the packaging of Rite sausage rolls. They did this for at least a year before introducing Bigi. As a regular customer of Rite, I was waiting for the launch of Bigi and it never seemed to come. I started making fun of the company in my mind as being unserious. I was definitely wrong as they have proven they knew what they were doing.

The non-alcoholic beverages market in general and soft drinks market in particular are set to have a good year in general with the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NIMET) forecasting a very hot year. Nigerians will be needing a lot of soft drinks to keep cool and quench thirst. The competition is fierce and is likely to become keener but Rite Foods have made a great start and it is pleasing to know they are a local company competing well against some of the biggest brands in the world.