C2 GREEN TEA

INTRODUCTION

Most Asians are accustomed to drinking all kinds of tea, but Filipinos, having
been colonized by the Spaniards for nearly 400 years and by the Americans for
another 50, are different: they have a strong preference for coffee and soft
drinks instead.

It was therefore a bold move for Universal Robina Corp. (URC) to introduce C2
Green Tea in the Philippine market in the latter part of 2004. “It’s true that
Filipinos have long been coffee and soda drinkers, “ says Patricia Go, URC’s
marketing services and advertising director, “but we noticed that they were
becoming more concerned with their well-being and were taking better care of
themselves. We therefore saw a need for a healthier alternative beverage.”
Based on these findings, URC founder John Gokongwei, Jr., having previously
seen several ready-to-drink tea beverages during a trip to China, decided that it
was time to introduce green tea to the local market.

THE COMPANY

Universal Robina Corporation (URC) is one of the largest branded consumer

food and beverage product companies in the Philippines and has a significant
and growing presence in the ASEAN markets. URC is among the Philippines'
pioneers in the industry. It has been in operations for over 50 years since John
Gokongwei, Jr. established Universal Corn Products, Inc, a cornstarch
manufacturing plant in Pasig, in 1954.

URC is the leading branded snackfoods and beverage company in the

Philippines. URC is the first "Philippine Pan ASEAN Multinational" and has proven
itself to be a trailblazer in manufacturing with a strong and loyal consumer base.
The company has unswervingly showcased its innovation and excellence
through its groundbreaking products, wide distribution network, and effective
marketing. This is also evident in URC's formidable market leadership in
snackfoods and beverages.

URC has built three strong regional brands over the years; "Jack 'n Jill" for snack
foods, "C2" for ready to drink tea, and "Great Taste" for coffee, with these brands
becoming popular across the ASEAN region. URC's key to success is to build very
strong branding through a robust product innovation pipeline, consumer-centric
marketing and world-class manufacturing and supply chain management. URC
will continue to transform itself in line with the changing external dynamics in line
with increasing opportunities in Asia and beyond.
Divisions under URC

Beverage Category

URC started its successful beverage business with Blend 45 - the first locally
manufactured soluble coffee, Great Taste Granules - the first concentrated
coffee in the country, and Great Taste 3-in-1 - the first complete coffee mix.
Then, URC shook up the market as it introduced C2 Cool & Clean - the first RTD
tea entrant in a market significantly dominated by carbonated soft drinks. URC
has also expanded its product portfolio by offering juices, water, ready-to-drink
coffee, and ready-to-drink chocolate.

C2 GREEN TEA – COOL & CLEAN

Product

C2 Green Tea is a bottled green tea beverage which is most commonly called
as C2 for "Cool & Clean". It is a high-quality, ready-to-drink tea beverage
boosted with antioxidant-rich "catechins" from green tea leaves (Camellia
sinensis), delicately brewed to retain the antioxidants normally lost in other
extraction processes and bottled in PET bottles on the same day. The Chinese
characters in the bottle means “brewed from natural green tea leaves.”

As of 2009, twelve variants can be bought in the Philippines. C2 Green Tea is

available in 230ml, 355ml, 500ml, 1000ml, and 1500ml bottles.
 C2 Green Tea Plain (also available in Sugar Free)
 C2 Green Tea Apple (also available in Sugar Free)
 C2 Green Tea Lemon (also available in Sugar Free)
 C2 Green Tea Peach
 C2 Green Tea Strawberry
 C2 Green Tea Kiwi
 C2 Green Tea Lychee
 C2 Green Tea Forest Fruits (blends of raspberry, blueberry and lemon)
 C2 Green Tea Orange
 C2 Black Tea Lemon

Currently C2 is available worldwide, at 32 countries and territories.

Source: Wikipedia.org
C2 is positioned as the dominant brand in the market using Blue Ocean
Strategy. It created an entirely new marketing territory for URC. Prior to C2, there
was no ready-to-drink tea product. Healthy drinks before C2 was either
expensive or does not taste good.

After over a year of groundwork, the URC product development team finally
decided on the “spa in a bottle” theme. The product took the form of a non-
carbonated green tea drink that was light, refreshing, and packed with
nutritional benefits. It tasted a bit sweet to suit the Filipino palate, but unlike most
cold teas at the time, it stayed close to the taste and flavor of traditional tea
brews. And to embody the core identity of the product, the team chose the
words “cool” and “clean” and named the drink “C2 Green Tea”.

C2 was created for people who have a certain way of thinking, who are looking
to live a more balanced, holistic life. That, of course, includes taking care of their
health and nutrition, so it doesn’t matter whether they’re 15 or 50 years old. C2’s
primary target market is the “health conscious people” who want a feeling of
freshness and calmness. It wasn’t so much demographic (in terms of size,
density, and distribution) as psychographic (in terms of attitudes and values).

C2’s competitors could be classified into two:

1. Direct Competitors – Nestea, Real Leaf, Alo, Lipton, One White Tea,
Sunkits, Fit’N Right and Sola

A comparison of the major players in the ready-to-drink tea category shows that
C2 has the most functional benefits among the rest.
 2. Indirect Competitors – Powdered Iced Tea, Juices, Ready-to-drink coffee,
energy drinks, water, flavored-water drinks, sodas, sports drinks, milk and
yogurt drinks

The market size for ready-to-drink tea category is at Php 7 billion and 71% of it or
Php 5.19 billion is C2’s share. It is followed by Coca-Cola with their Nestea brand
at 10.2%.
Price

C2 green tea is priced slightly above its direct competitors. It is the first to offer
the 1 liter pack as well as the 230ml solo pack.
Place

Distribution of the C2 Green Tea is through regional distributors and independent

business managers or agents to over 42,000 supermarkets, grocery and sari-sari
store outlets, gasoline stations, to name a few of its retailers nationwide. One
can now also find C2 drinks in vending machines placed in canteens, hospitals,
and campuses, which is very convenient and cost-effective, especially when
the lack of direct labor involved is considered, a cost which usually adds up to
the selling price. Aside from outside intermediaries, the firm also does direct
distribution wherein they dispatch C2 drinks in Robinson’s Supermarket, which is
also a subsidiary alongside Universal Robina Corporation of the John Gokongwei
(JG) Summit Holdings Incorporated. With this, the firm has the control on how C2
can be distributed in the market and is able to maintain at the same time its
image by providing convenience and accessibility to its large market.

C2’s pervasive market presence also contributed greatly to its success. The
product is widely sold wherever people might want to buy it, so URC has always
maintained high production volumes and distribution levels for it. They wouldn’t
want someone looking for the product and not being able to purchase it
because they just might buy something else instead of C2.

Promotion

URC positioned C2 against soft drinks at a time when the market for it was 47
times bigger than ready-to-drink (RTD) tea, and when its sales volume was 4
times bigger than URC’s. Yet today, C2 sells much more than the original market
size of RTD tea when C2 was launched.

A major challenge in introducing C2 was the fact that Filipinos are generally not
tea-drinkers; when they do drink tea, they normally want it very sweet. That’s
why URC’s initial marketing efforts were centered on product education. All of
their tri-media advertorials focused on giving information about green tea and
its health benefits. The strategy proved highly effective and C2 Green Tea
gained immediate public acceptance.

C2’s successful introduction was as much the result of a sustained and

aggressive marketing strategy as of good timing. It came into the market just
when Filipinos were becoming more health conscious and needed a beverage
that would fit into their changed lifestyle.

1. Hard Print Media

URC employs the Renaissance for its advertising genre, which is well aligned to
C2’s product definition. The Renaissance is the advertising genre most
applicable to food, which C2 is. In this particular print advertisement Artvisuels
for Universal Robina, the C2 bottles are centered but the background of
splashing water and the bits of fruits and tea leaves gives the image a certain
depth and perspective, which is characteristic of Renaissance. The splash of
water behind the variants of C2 Green Tea is symbolic of the rejuvenation that
C2 can give to its consumers.

The advertising genre for this particular print advertisement is Classical. This is
apparent as the advertisement shows only a single message that is ‘cool and
clean inside and out.’ The wisps of icy cool fog surrounding the bottle of C2
Green Tea Apple is indicative of the use of symbol as an advertising execution
style in this print advertisement. These wisps symbolize the quality of C2 that
cools its consumers and refreshes them.

2. Soft Print Media

From the official website of C2 which is the www.thec2life.com (no longer

existing as of 2016), their institutional advertising of the C2 life uses the Tribal
advertising genre. This is evident with the pictures of the models at the heading
of the page, some of whom are baring their skin, with wisps of leaves being
blown around them, symbolic of a commune with nature. In addition, the
pictures between the copies also show a celebration of life, which is an attribute
of the Tribal advertising genre. This electronic print media uses a Lifestyle
advertising execution style.
To cut costs on maintaining a separate website for C2, URC utilized the free
usage of facebook to create a separate facebook page for C2.

3. Commercials
C2 Green Tea’s commercials utilize the Lifestyle advertising execution as it shows
that C2 enhances a consumer’s lifestyle and can be integrated within anyone’s
lifestyle.

4. Events

In the summer of 2009, C2 launched the Best About Summer 2009. The Best
About Summer 2009 were a series of events held at the several vacation hot
spots in the Philippines, including Baguio, Boracay and Puerto Galera. At these
events, activities that promoted the optimization of overall well-being were
conducted such as yoga.
THE CHALLENGE

Text messages circulated that the use of PET bottles, which are being used in the
manufacturing of C2 and other beverages, is dangerous to the health. Later,
URC issued a statement that the use of PET bottles for cold and hot-fill food and
beverages has been approved by both the US Food and Drug
Administration (US FDA), European Food Safety Authority and even the local
regulatory body here in the Philippines (BFAD). The company also said that it
adheres to the conditions of use for PET bottles, as set forth by the organizations
mentioned earlier.

In addition to that, even though C2 Green Tea is still the market leader for the
RTD tea category, more and more consumers switch to the competing RTD tea
brands. There is a rapid decline in C2’s sales over the last few years as some of
the new brands in the RTD tea category come in to play. The reason was when
the nutritional facts for the 250ml of all the RTD tea brands are compared, it
could be found out that C2 has the highest sugar content. It has 28.8g of sugar
while Alo comes second with 22g, followed by Nestea with 17.5g, Lipton with
16.2g and Real Leaf with zero grams of sugar for all of its offered flavors. C2 also
has the highest calories among RTD tea brands in the market. As more and more
people become health conscious, they are more focusing now on the nutrition
fact labels that can be found in each drink bottle alongside with the calorie
count websites such as MyFitnessPal.com and CalorieCount.com.