Snapple Case Study

Snapple’s brand equity was driven by how unique and popular the product became almost immediately. By 1994, it had grown substantially and was known as a popular and user friendly “ready-to-drink” beverage. The huge growth Snapple was able to achieve was due in part to the almost cultish fan base that Snapple developed. For example, a family in New Jersey even gave their son the middle name Snapple. Studies showed that ready-to-drink beverages were selected almost strictly based upon fashion, taste, and status related considerations. For this reason, Snapple gained appeal through alternative means of marketing. They used product placements (Seinfeld and Sleepless in Seattle), sponsorship from celebrities, consumer composed jingles, and other alternative means to get consumers to believe they were a fun, innovative, popular and fashionable brand. They used theses sources of marketing to target a younger (18-30), more alternative and “new aged” crowd. Another source of brand equity for Snapple was Wendy “the Snapple Lady.” She was a company employee and started by answering consumer letters. Later, she became the unofficial spokesperson of Snapple. She was featured in commercials reading consumers letters and was really Snapple’s first effort towards giving the brand a (“real people”) personality. This was backed by Snapple’s all-natural ingredients, which helped them gain popularity with health conscious people as well. Although Snapple was good at reaching its target market, its largest disadvantage in the early years was how small their niche was. In 1994, Snapple was sold to Quaker. Some saw this as a great opportunity for both companies as there were synergies between them. However, the targeted consumer was changing. The new aged consumers that had previously bought Snapple were getting bored. They began to shift back towards purchasing other read-to-drink beverages. Quaker attempted to respond to its bored consumer, but was too slow to react. Snapple’s