7UP is Approaching $1 Billion in Sales!
Let’s talk about branding your product and positioning your product in people’s minds. Al Reis and Jack Trout revolutionized the concept of positioning. If you haven’t read their book, “POSITIONING: The Battle for your Mind,” you should!
7UP was created by Charles Leiper Grigg, who launched his St. Louis-based company The Howdy Corporation, in 1920. Grigg then came up with the formula for a lemon-lime soft drink in 1929. The product was originally named “Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda,” which was later shortened to “7Up Lithiated Lemon Soda,” followed by just “7Up” by 1936.
Although the origin of the revised name is unclear, Britvic, a British producer of soft drinks based in Hemel Hempstead, England, claims that the name comes from the seven main ingredients in the drink. They also claim that the name is a result of the fact that 7UP was bottled in 7-ounce bottles (Coca-Cola and most other soft drinks were bottled in 6-ounce bottles).
In Al Reis’s and Jack Trout’s book, they dissected the power of POSITIONING a brand or product in one’s mind and made brilliant discoveries. Essentially, positioning is defined as how you relate the unfamiliar with the familiar. You can position your product as better than, the same as, beside another one, the list goes on. For example, “We’re No 2. We Try Harder,” was a brilliant positioning discovery for Avis!
According to Newsweek, 7UP ranked as the 10th-most popular soda in the United States in 2021, earning just shy of $1 billion in sales. The brand’s current success is just the latest chapter in the history of this soft drink — a history that spans more than 90 years!
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Now, enter 7UP. We have had Coca-Cola dominating the industry since January 29, 1892. This is often the brand that’s in consumers’ minds when it comes to soft drinks, so how do you enter that already full arena and succeed? You position yourself. How do you do that? With real market research, real surveys, real digging, and it wouldn’t be a bad idea to hire a team with experience in creating successful campaigns.
7UP entered a tough market and is now almost at a billion in sales. How did they position themselves in a Coca Cola world? They came up with The “uncola.” Instantly, our minds and taste buds were able to distinguish 7UP from anything else on the market. Brilliant!!!! Watch this 32-second video by Geoffrey Holder, “7UP – The Uncol-aaaaaaah!”
www.youtube.com/watch?v=euvh-eJ1rVg
Recently, the famous Al Ries responded to one of our newsletters on Coca-Cola and had this to say:
“Great article. Thanks for sending me a copy. The research shows that Pepsi tastes better than Coke. But most consumers think the opposite. Why? Because the brand name affects the perception of taste. Take two bottles of wine with exactly the same contents. Mark one bottle $10 and the other bottle $20. Then do taste tests. Most consumers will think the $20 bottle tastes better.”
All the best,
Al
Branding and positioning are an art. Making use of professional marketing and survey skills, combined with ingenuity, allows you to easily align all the findings. Your success will depend on the quality and quantity of the surveys and answers, transforming the findings into workable data, and so on.
I can help you position your business, your products, or a new release you’ve been thinking about. Let me help you by doing what I do best!
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I’ll leave you with what makes the “Ultimate Website,” which ties in nicely with all of the above information:
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