Coca-Cola Amatil has high hopes for coffee-flavoured Coke

Coca-Cola Amatil hopes coffee-flavoured Coca-Cola, the latest addition to its cola range, will provide a much needed boost to beverage sales this summer. Coca-Cola Amatil and its marketing partner, Coca-Cola South Pacific, launched Coca-Cola Plus Coffee – a sugar free cola with a hit of Brazilian coffee beans – this week ahead of the launch of the summer marketing push. Coca-Cola Plus Coffee is a temporary “flavour variant” designed to pique consumer interest and attract new, lapsed or occasional customers to the cola category over the peak selling season. However, CCA and CCSP are hoping “Coffee Coke” will be so popular it becomes a permanent addition to the range, emulating the success of Vanilla Coke, which was introduced in 2002 as a temporary variant but stayed the course. “Australians have a love affair with coffee so we thought why not give them more of what they want – the great taste of Coca-Cola with a dash of real coffee from Brazil,” said CCSP marketing director Lisa Winn. The launch of Coca-Cola Plus Coffee follows the success last summer of the limited edition variant Coca-Cola Ginger, which helped drive former Coke drinkers back into the cola category. According to Nielsen figures, more than 5 per cent of all Australian households bought Coke Ginger in the final quarter of 2016 and the variant drove a 4 per cent increase in overall household penetration for the Coke range, the strongest in three years. “Coke Ginger was very successful at growing penetration of the [cola] category within Australia households and we found that the limited edition model is a really good way to deliver that with retailers,” Ms Winn said. Ms Winn hopes Coke Plus Coffee becomes a popular alternative to a long black, piccolo or flat white for a mid-afternoon energy boost. While Coke Plus Coffee has more caffeine than Classic Coke – 35mg in a 250 millilitre can vs 24mg – it has less caffeine than a similarly-sized latte or flat white.

Source: www.afr.com