LIMA--Peru's Concordia Group, famous for its strawberry flavor red cola, has launched a new yellow diet cola, the first local product to be caffeine free.
Concordia's Financial Manager, Manuel Tirado, believes the new product, Triple Kola Diet, will win a "significant portion of the yellow cola market." Yellow colas generally have a lemonade or pineapple flavor.
Triple Kola Diet's main competitor is Inca Kola Diet, also yellow, which currently holds nearly 80% of the diet cola market in Peru. But Mr. Tirado believes consumers are now looking for a caffeine- free variant. Unlike most other yellow colas, Inca Kola is made from extracts of Peruvian herbs, such as "hierba luisa."
Advertising for Triple Kola Diet is managed by Are Publicidad, which will celebrate its first anniversary in December.
Monica Quejada, Are's accounts manager, says the advertising is aimed at promoting the healthy benefits of a caffeine-free, diet beverage. The ads show svelte men and women exercising and then twisting the caps off their Triple Kola Diet.
The ad campaign is small, with print ads running in selected magazines and commercials shown mainly during soccer matches and news programs on three of Lima's seven TV stations.
The Concordia Group has been producing its trademark Concordia, a red cola, since 1948. The company also has the franchise rights to Pepsi in the northern third of Peru, where it is strongest. It also produces San Carlos mineral water and Calypso fruit juices.
Copyright November 1998, Crain Communications Inc.