Deep River Rock: History, Growth, And Marketing Strategies

History of Deep River Rock

Question:

Discuss about the Analysis Of Deep River Rock Case Study.

Deep River Rock entered the Irish market in the year 1994 and has further experienced huge growth in the next few years. Deep River Rock is considered as a high quality water bottle company of the Irish origin where the water is sourced from the glacial hills of the Co Antrim. The water is also considered to be rich in magnesium, calcium, sodium and potassium. The company has expanded its pack size and has further offered a convenient size to the purpose of hydration (Wright and Kadir 2015). The organization has launched the 1 litre pack in the year 2015 in response to the greater needs of the consumers. Deep River Rock is mainly passionate about encouraging the hydration related purposes of the consumers by providing a wide range of products and further helping in the enhancement of physical and mental performance. Deep River Rock has launched its new recipes in the year 2016 to fulfil the needs of the consumers (Chan et al. 2014).

Deep River Rock was converted into a global brand by the Coca-Cola Bottlers Ireland. Coca-Cola is a global brand which has its presence in many countries in the world and the headquarters of the company is located in Atlanta. Georgia. Coca Cola is an organization of American origin. The sales and revenue of the company has been increasing in the recent years and the gallon sales of Coca Cola was distributed as, 43% in US, 37% in Mexico, Pakistan, India, Japan, Brazil and China. Deep River Rock was marketed by Coca Cola with the help of the distribution and sales related knowledge of the company. The company was developed into a brand with the qualities of strategic thinking and inherent marketing. Deep River Rock had become a static brand in the year 1999 with a share of 5.2% and the improvement was required in the company if it was to survive in the market (Ie.coca-colahellenic.com. 2018).

The bottled water market in Ireland has been growing in a fast pace since the last few years. The people of Ireland seem to have no problems in paying for the bottled waters and they tend to spend more than millions on the bottled water every year. The citizens have the tendency to spend much more on the daily usage of bottled water as compared to the water charges that were taken by the government previously. The water bottles always have a huge market share in the industry of Ireland. Bottled water has been one of the highest in demand soft drink in the market of Ireland (Erevelles, Fukawa and Swayne 2016). The players in the water bottle market of Ireland are all global brands and they fare quite well in the market as well. The sales of the bottled waters have been growing in the recent years in both value and volumes. The resurgent economy of the country is mainly responsible for the growth of the sales of bottled water. The three leading players in the market of bottled waters in Ireland are, Danone Waters, Britvic Ireland and the Coca Cola HBC Ireland. The three companies together hols around 43% of the total market share in the country (Fresneda and Gefen 2017).

Growth of Deep River Rock in the Bottled Water Market of Ireland

The total value of the Ireland water market is around 129 million Euros and the growing rate of the market is 11% per year. Coca Cola had undertaken the Deep River Rock company in the year 1995 and the company still showed static growth in the year 1999. The Coca Cola company then undertook some marketing related activities which were related to the development of the Deep River Rock brand. The bottled water market was already filled with many international and successful players and it was difficult for Deep
River Rock to create a position in this industry. The main consumers of the bottled waters in Ireland were the younger population of the country (Karimi and Naghibi 2015).

The younger group of consumers had thereby become a lucrative market for the company as they purchased the smaller bottles much more and in high frequencies. The main fear of the organization was that the bottled water companies in Ireland can get commoditised quite soon. The company had then proposed innovative advertisements for their products so that they attract the target audience. The tagline of the first advertisement of the company was “Water you wear”. Although the tagline had seemed to be meaningless for many people, it became the living and brand for the company. The packaging of the bottles was also changed and the identity of Deep River Rock in the market was completely new (Lendel and Varmus 2015).

The personality of the brand was created in a unique manner with the help of various advertising channels including, web ambient, delivery vans, above-the-line advertising, in-store POS and many more. The communication with the customers was performed by the company with the help of television in the early stages as the budget was limited. Radio was also used as a medium of advertising for the company. A new budget was injected in the company in the year 2003 and the next stage of promotions were introduced by the company (Žák 2015). The relationship with the consumers were improved and the company introduced two new advertising campaigns with the names, “Convenience Store” and “Changing room”. The advertisements were then placed on the busy stations like Dublin so that the reach of the company can be increased further (Matei, Antonovici and Savulescu 2015).

The second phase of the marketing functions started from the year 2005 and is being continued till the present time. The next advertising campaign had the tagline of “Purer than you”. This was followed by the changes in packaging of the products and this helped the organization in creating a brand in Ireland. The “Purer than you” named campaign of Deep River rick was launched in the year 2005 and many new television advertisements were also introduced in the market. These advertisements gave Deep River Rock the topmost position in the market of Ireland. In the last 10 years the company has been growing continuously and the credit of this has been given to the changes in the advertising related campaigns of the company. Deep River Rock has been growing in the Ireland market from the year 1999 and the company has achieved record sales in the 2016. The major reason behind the continuous success of the company is the innovative advertising policy that has been designed over the years (Rozdolskaya et al. 2014).

Marketing Strategies of Deep River Rock

The range of products that are offered by the company is also increasing and it is now able to attract more and more customers towards the brand. The various products of the company have been moved to no calories sugar free products. The pack sizes of the products are also increasing and is providing health related benefits to the consumers. The company has recently introduced the “Think Straight HYDRATE’ campaign and has launched products like, “Deep River Rock Revive Magnesium” which provides encouragement to the consumers to “start with hydration – and stay ahead” (Whalen et al. 2016). The other product that was launched under this campaign was named as “Deep River Rock Revive Zinc” which urges the consumers to “start with hydration – and stay ahead”. Two other innovative products of the company were launched with the names, “Deep River Rock Relax Mint” and “Deep River Rock Relax Lavender”. The health benefits provided by the products of the company are main factors that attracts the consumers of all age groups (Wright et al. 2015).

Innovation has been the main feature of the Deep River Rock brand and this can further help the company to increase its sales in the market and retain the position that it has created in the industry. The long-term advertising of Deep River Rock has been recognised by the IAPI ADFX Awards. The company was able to build its brand in the last 10 years with the help of the advertising policies. DRR can maintain its position by adding more products to its range so that they can reach more customers. The company can also aim for global expansion as Coca Cola is a known global brand in many countries in Europe and Asia. The brand value of Coca Cola can be of immense help for the increasing of market share of Deep River Rock. Deep River Rock can aim towards increasing its customer reach with the help of social media which can help them in increasing the customer base and reach. Deep River Rock already has a page in Twitter and Facebook and the advertising of the products in these pages can prove to be effective for the company. Expansion of the company in other countries and supplying their products to the global customers will help them in further increasing their market share and maintaining their top position as well. The unique health benefits that are provided by the products can act the selling feature for the organization in the market. This will enable Deep River Rock to reach new heights in the market.

References

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Erevelles, S., Fukawa, N. and Swayne, L., 2016. Big Data consumer analytics and the transformation of marketing. Journal of Business Research, 69(2), pp.897-904.

Fresneda, J. and Gefen, D., 2017. Applying Text Analysis to Determine Factors That Increase the Assessed Usefulness of Online Product Reviews: An Abstract. In Creating Marketing Magic and Innovative Future Marketing Trends (pp. 1405-1406). Springer, Cham.

Ie.coca-colahellenic.com. (2018). Deep RiverRock. [online] Available at: https://ie.coca-colahellenic.com/en/brands-and-campaigns/explore-our-brands-and-products/deep-riverrock/ [Accessed 5 Mar. 2018].

Karimi, S. and Naghibi, H.S., 2015. Social media marketing (SMM) strategies for small to medium enterprises (SMEs). International Journal of Information, Business and Management, 7(4), p.86.

Lendel, V. and Varmus, M., 2015. Proposal of innovative approaches of relationship marketing in business. Business: theory and practice, 16, p.63.

Matei, A., Antonovici, C.G. and Savulescu, C., 2015. Innovative Public Marketing as Instrument for Creating the Social Value.

Rozdolskaya, I., Evtushenko, E., Somina, I. and Degaltseva, I., 2014. Problem-oriented way and multi-aspect character of research of innovative management of competitive enterprises at the stage of global transformations. Life Science Journal, 11(9), pp.963-970.

Whalen, P., Uslay, C., Pascal, V.J., Omura, G., McAuley, A., Kasouf, C.J., Jones, R., Hultman, C.M., Hills, G.E., Hansen, D.J. and Gilmore, A., 2016. Anatomy of competitive advantage: towards a contingency theory of entrepreneurial marketing. Journal of Strategic Marketing, 24(1), pp.5-19.

Wright, A.J., Veríssimo, D., Pilfold, K., Parsons, E.C.M., Ventre, K., Cousins, J., Jefferson, R., Koldewey, H., Llewellyn, F. and McKinley, E., 2015. Competitive outreach in the 21st century: why we need conservation marketing. Ocean & Coastal Management, 115, pp.41-48.

Wright, G.H. and Kadir, B., 2015. Understanding Innovative Marketing Practices: An Exploratory Case Study of Acknowledged Innovative Marketers. In Proceedings of the 1997 World Marketing Congress (pp. 121-124). Springer, Cham.

Žák, Š., 2015. The identification of innovative research methods and techniques utilized in marketing research in the digital era. Studia commercialia Bratislavensia, 8(29), pp.139-152.