PepsiCo plans to relaunch Duke's beverages

MUMBAI: PepsiCo India plans to relaunch Duke's range of beverages, more than six years after taking the century-old lemonade brand off the shelves. The brand will be test-marketed in Mumbai initially, with new flavours such as raspberry, masala soda, gingerale and ice-cream soda. PepsiCo, which will retail Duke's in retro packs, is attempting to gain volumes in the country's growing lime and lemon-flavoured fizzy drink market, dominated by rival Coca-Cola India.

"Duke's flavours were once part of every Mumbaikar's life," said Deepika Warrier, director marketing, beverages, at PepsiCo India. "And now is the time to identify region-specific opportunities and give them the right kind of focus."

PepsiCo India acquired Duke & Sons from the Pandole family in 1995. For almost the next decade, Duke's products remained a key constituent of Pepsi's portfolio in the western market before it withdrew them in 2004 to focus on national brands.

Pepsi launched lemon drink Nimbooz two years ago and has been pushing the brand, banking on its familiarity with homemade nimbu pani. But it still isn't a match for citrus-flavoured drinks.

Experts say Pepsi's strategy with Duke's could help it gain more volumes.

"Since it's a relaunch, it is a good move to launch variants to get more volume out of one brand," says brand consultancy DY Works president Alpana Parida. The variants should, however, relate to the core equity of the brand just as Fair and Lovely variants retain the "fairness" proposition, she said.