Kinley Marketing Mix (4Ps) & Marketing Strategy
Marketing strategy of Kinley through marketing mix framework which covers the 4Ps (Product, Price, Place, Promotion).
Kinley Product Strategy:
Kinley targets the group who are conscious about health and purity, with very specific needs for quality, and can pay high for that value preposition. Surrounding this, Kinley offers still and carbonated water in its product portfolio in its marketing mix.
Packaged Water: With a symbol of a drop, as its logo, Kinley promises a brand you can trust for purity and quality. The packaged water of Kinley is available in very SKUs: 500ml,1L, 1.5 L, 2L, 5L, 20L, and 25L. Another popular SKUs are 200 ml Pouches, prevalent in both rural and urban area.
Carbonated Flavors: Bitter lemon, Bitter orange, Tonic water, Ginger Ale, etc. These products being luxury products rather than need based, are launched only in few countries. India is also one of them.
Club Soda: Kinley soda, enjoys the position of leader again, in this segment. It was launched around 2002, and gained a huge popularity, specially due to prices lower than competitor, with the same quality.
Future products: Flavored drinks at a cheap rate are the new upcoming products of Kinley. It was confirmed recently by Coca Cola, as to protect its market share from growing popularity of regional brands. These flavors will include Jaljeera, lime, etc.
Image: company website
This concludes the product strategy in Kinley marketing mix & strategy.
Kinley Price/Pricing Strategy:
Below is the pricing strategy in Kinley marketing mix strategy:
At the time, Kinley was launched, other brands were already present, hence Kinley’s pricing strategy in its marketing mix was that of a Market Follower, with market penetration cost. Kinley brand offered the same quality at a lower price, during its initial stage, to enter the market. Also, it introduced a pouch SKU 0f 200 ml available at a very low cost.
This was done, keeping in mind the rural market. Soon, it became popular amongst the travelers, due its easy availability and low cost. Kinley was able to provide a lower cost, due to its parent brand Coca Cola, that was highly profitable and popular at that time, and could afford the price war. Even in coming years, when slowly the competition had to increase their price, Kinley was still sold at a lower price. Due to this strategy, it became a popular brand amongst the price conscious & health alert consumers globally.
Read more about Kinley
Kinley Place & Distribution Strategy:
Following is the distribution strategy in the Kinley marketing mix:
Coca Cola’s strength laid in its strong distribution channel and competent suppliers. Although, Pepsi, had the same strengths, but Coke was the first one to penetrate in this segment, and thus was able to easily skim the market. To compete with the existing players, Kinley initiated its distribution in Metro cities, at a lower price. Soon it gained popularity. Afterwards, from metros it moved to other urban areas and then to rural. The penetration strategy in the rural market played a huge role in increasing its market share. Reason was Pouched water, at a price as low as Re.1 in India. The test market for the pouches was Ahmedabad, and then with its success, it was launched all around. The distribution channel includes small mom and pop stores, Local stalls, local fairs, food segment of malls, association with food partners like Mc Donald’s. Coke2home provides online ordering facility for bulk orders in limited cities. The online prices are also available at discounts and offers. The packaged water of Kinley is available, almost around all the major countries, wherever Coca Cola is present. Although carbonated water is available only in few selected geographical locations, as it is mostly a luxury segment of the brand. These countries include Germany, Spain, Maldives, India, Italy, etc. Kinley, is actively looking forward to skim the growing rural areas, with increasing health awareness there.
Also launching flavors, popular in these areas, for gaining market share.
Kinley Promotion & Advertising Strategy:
The promotional and advertising strategy in the Kinley marketing mix is as follows:
Kinley, being a Coca Cola product, has an extensive brand visibility. Building around the tagline: ‘Thrust of Trust’, the advertisements revolve around stories of normal upper-middle class people, surrounding truthfulness and honesty, branding the position of Kinley as the brand of purity. Coca Cola, had made sure to provide excellent value preposition to Kinley, with continuous rebranding according to the needs. Kinley rebranded its bottled water around 2014, changing logo from flowing water to ‘water droplet’ and with a tagline of ‘boond-boond mei vishwas’ in India. The label was also more transparent, to enhance the brand’s position around purity. Leveraging its ‘Value on trust’ Kinley launches many events and campaigns surrounding the theme. These events and campaigns are to increase awareness around healthy drinking habits, importance of drinking water and bringing forward the core value of trust, to build on a position amongst its consumers. Hence this gives an insight on Kinley marketing mix.
About Kinley:
Kinley is a brand launched by Coca Cola in 2000, for providing bottled water. Kinley used reverse osmosis as its water purification process. Today with highest market share, it acquires the position of market leader, with close competition with Bisleri. Other competitions also include Aquafina and Himalayan. The basic reason of fast growth and popularity of Kinley, was the branding of coca cola, together with Coca Cola’s relations with distributors and suppliers, that allowed it to expand at the speed of light. With increasing health awareness and paucity of pure drinking water, the whole mineral water industry is growing at a fast pace. Though easy availability of water purifiers and their decreasing cost, might slowly replace packaged mineral water.
Though carbonated water’s market is estimated to grow. Although regional brands are giving a tough competition to the flavored segment of Kinley.
Browse marketing strategy and 4Ps analysis of more brands similar to Kinley. The Marketing Mix & Strategy section covers 4Ps and 7Ps of more than 800 brands in 2 categories.
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