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Competition in energy drinks, sports drinks and vitamin enhanced beverages

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Competition in energy drinks, sports drinks and vitamin enhanced beverages
Kyle Holloway
Spring Hill College

INTRODUCTION
Alternative beverages such as sports drinks, energy drinks, and vitamin-enhanced beverages developed into an important competitor for the beverage industry and saw rapid growth in the mid-2000s. Alternative beverages compete on the basis of differentiation from each other in the market and traditional drinks, such as carbonated soft drinks and fruit juices. The largest sellers of alternative beverages are the global food and beverage giants, such as Coca-Cola and PepsiCo., that have already built respected brands in snack foods, carbonated soft drinks, and fruit juices prior to joining the …show more content…

The quality can be judged via taste preferences, the effectiveness of the drink (i.e. the amount of energy the consumer gains from the energy drink), or what certain companies endorse (i.e. Monster and Red Bull endorse extreme sports and Coca-Cola endorses healthy lifestyles). These preferences help support an extremely loyal consumer base making the market hard to enter and gain market share from other established companies. This combined with the already higher costs of alternative beverages – energy drinks costing nearly 400 percent higher by volume than equivalent carbonated soft-drinks – leads to weak competitive pressures from buyer bargaining power.
ANALYSIS AND EVALUATION
One of the most important factors for success in the alternative beverage industry is innovation. As Gamble mentions in the case, “Product innovation had been among the most important competitive features of the alternative beverage industry since the introduction of Gatorade in 1967.” (Gamble, 2011, p. 269) This is certainly still the case, as companies who come up with new, innovative ideas are usually rewarded with large market share as seen with products like Red Bull, Gatorade and Five Hour Energy shots. Each of these products holds a commanding market share as copycat products fight for the scraps. In 2009 Red Bull held a 40% of dollar sales market share for energy drinks in the US; the next closest competitor,

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