Growth Slowed Markedly Last Year : Cooler Makers Hope to See Hotter Sales This Summer
Cooler makers are putting on a new face this summer as they try to inspire fresh interest in a beverage category whose torrid sales slowed markedly last year.
The California Cooler beach party is history. So is the Sun Country cooler polar bear. And actor Bruce Willis is missing from the action in new ads for Seagram’s Wine Coolers.
Something else is missing too--the fruit pulp that category pioneer California Cooler had once cited as evidence that its product contained “the real stuff.”
In addition, cooler makers are hoping that a number of new flavors will win the drinks more fans.
Seagram’s, the category leader, plans to add two flavors for this year, bringing its total to eight. Bartles & Jaymes has doubled its list to four, and California Cooler has added one flavor its other four.
Appeal Questioned
The big question facing the industry is whether coolers were a fad or are a sustainable segment of the alcoholic beverage market.
Cooler sales tapered off during the second half of last summer, prompting some analysts to speculate that consumers had tired of the sweet concoctions of fruit juice, alcohol and water.
Sales rocketed from a few million cases in 1983 to an estimated 72.6 million cases in 1987. Industry executives said that, based on an average price of about $3.50 for a four-pack, the retail value of the category is about $1.5 billion.
However, according to Impact, a publication of M. Shanken Communications Inc. that tracks the wine business, cooler shipments increased only 6% in 1987.
According to Impact, that contrasts with a 65% growth rate in 1986, a 300% rate in 1985, and one of more than 500% in 1984, the year California Cooler first encountered serious competition.
Slowdown Expected
Analysts said that with such growth a slowdown was inevitable. Some predict that the product will survive, citing its appeal to women and others who prefer light-alcohol alternatives to beer.
“Maybe for some people it was a fad, but we believe there are hard-core wine cooler drinkers out there who will continue to drink these products,” said Jon Fredrikson, president of Gomberg, Fredrikson & Associates, wine industry consultants in San Francisco.
Marvin Shanken, Impact editor and publisher, recently predicted that cooler sales will reach 133 million cases a year by the year 2000.
The short-term outlook is uncertain, however. Shanken refused to estimate growth prospects for 1988 and Fredrikson said the market may be flat.
Said William Slone, president of Beverage Media Ltd., a trade publisher: “A lot of people have their fingers crossed, but we haven’t seen any upturn in that market yet. Among retailers, there is no expectation of any meaningful growth this year.”
Seagram’s in Lead
In sales last year, Seagram’s Wine Coolers, from the Seagram Beverage Co. of New York, nosed ahead of Bartles & Jaymes from E.&J.; Gallo Winery of Modesto, according to Impact. California Cooler, from Brown-Forman Beverage Co. in Louisville, was third, and Sun Country, made by Canandaigua Wine Co. of Canandaigua, N.Y., placed fourth.
Seagram ended its two-year association with Willis, star of the “Moonlighting” TV show, by mutual agreement this year, said Mark Taxel, a Seagram executive. Taxel said Willis helped Seagram “get to where we are in the market, but our needs now are more complex.”
He said Seagram will use several other celebrities to promote its new Lime Mist and Seagram’s Extra flavors and also its other flavors. The new ads appearing so far have featured actors Steve Guttenberg, Woody Harrelson and Anne Archer.
Bartles & Jaymes introduced a berry flavor in January and a peach one in April.
The peach cooler was heralded in the first Frank and Ed ad not created by Hal Riney & Partners of San Francisco, Gallo’s longtime agency. Riney resigned last December, and Gallo spokesman Dan Solomon declined to discuss when a new agency may be retained.
Ad, Formula Changes
California Cooler had put the pulp in its citrus and orange coolers from the first in the early 1980s. This was done to make them look like their predecessors, the mixture of fruit juice and wine popular in the 1960s. California Cooler ads once featured beach party scenes and pop songs from the era such as “Louie, Louie” and “The Bird Is the Word.”
All that is gone from the current California Cooler ad campaign, and the company no longer puts pulp in its product.
The new ads rely on special effects to depict scenes such as a cherry being transformed into a bottle of Wild Cherry Splash, the new flavor.
John Shastid, an executive at Brown-Forman, said that pulp was an effective addition to the drinks early on but that consumers have realized that coolers contain fruit juice and now prefer them without pulp.
Sun Country dumped the pulp from its coolers too, saying consumers disliked the sediment at the bottom of the bottle.
The company has retired the ad campaign using celebrities in polar bear costumes in favor of steamy ads showing scantily dressed men and women looking for relief from the heat. The ads--for its new Wild Jamaican Rum and Strawberry Blush flavors--were so provocative, in fact, that the ABC and CBS networks blushed. Executives demanded revisions in the commercials, and Sun Country complied.
Miller Brewing Co., which entered the cooler market with Matilda Bay last fall, recently introduced a second flavor. Its ads pitch this drink as being from Australia and also as the only non-carbonated cooler among the majors.
(Another brewer, Anheuser-Busch Inc., abandoned the cooler market last year when it withdrew its Dewey Stevens brand.)
Michael Boykin, brand manager for Matilda Bay in Milwaukee, said Miller is convinced of the long-term potential of the cooler market.
“We think we can be one of the key players in the category,” he said.
