CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. -- Soft-drink company Double-Cola recently announced that it is retooling its brand, targeting new cola drinkers as it seeks to expand market share at the expense of its much larger rivals such as Coca-Cola Co. and PepsiCo.
Officials told The Chattanooga Times Free Press that their latest effort is different from what the company now calls the "graphics change" that marked branding campaigns in 2010 and 2011.
This time, Double-Cola will change everything.
Double Cola has less than 1% of the soft drink market dominated by giants Coca-Cola and Pepsi.
But the Chattanooga, Tenn.-based soft drink has survived in part by selling in overlooked overseas and U.S. rural markets.
A 2003 study of soft drink marketing by Joyce M. Wolburg, a communications professor at Marquette University, credits Double-Cola with "a winning strategy in the less-glamorous markets of rural America and the third world."
Now, Double-Cola is dropping its focus on blue jeans and baby boomers in favor of the younger, more chic world of college students and mid-20s professionals, Mallory Browning, marketing manager who also overseas the company's new marketing campaign to college students, told the newspaper. "We really want to get that white-collar market."
The redesign isn't just new taglines, typography and colors, added Gina McCommon, company vice president. It's a radical departure from the company's long-term philosophy. "It's always been the same strategy--the all-American brand appealing to the all-American guy," McCommon said. "We've done redesigns, but we didn't ever change our brand strategy or positioning."
The new vivid, progressive redesign bucks the current soft drink trend of what she calls "sameness," and marks a departure from Double-Cola's previous minor updates.
"I would say that before it was kind of like having plastic surgery. Now it's like finding the fountain of youth to bring it back to life," McCommon said.
Her new domestic strategy also will play well against the more established brands, she said, offering consumers an alternative to regular colas.
"If you look at the cola brands out there, they all look like they're appealing to a similar market," which she describes as middle-aged, blue-collar workers.
Double-Cola's new market, on the other hand, consists of "males 18 to 24," She said. "It's the simple guy who likes simple things, someone who is working on his car, or has Double-Cola in a dorm or fraternity."
By sales volume, Double Cola is still an international company, with overseas sales still making up 60% to 70% of total revenue, McCommon told the Times Free Press.
Double-Cola has several new distribution agreements in the pipeline, said the report, including one that will expand distribution in North Georgia.
Aside from building painting, social media and a plan to install coolers into the trunk of several VW Beetles, the company isn't planning a big, splashy marketing campaign to take on its rivals, she said.
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