How Coca-Cola’s Vio capitalised on blurring categories

Sam Peña-Taylor

Coca-Cola launched Vio, a water brand, in Germany 10 years ago; in its rise, the brand learned to capitalise on the blurring in the water category from a necessary product to one that consumers should enjoy.

It shouldn't be difficult to sell a product made up of the compound that covers 70% of the planet and 60% of the human body. Water is fundamental to human life, but its sheer ubiquity presents key marketing obstacles that require brands to mine as much information about their consumers as they can to unlock value, according to Christian Vilgaard Thomsen, Senior Business Development Manager at The Coca-Cola Company in Germany.

A key benefit of selling water is the huge variety of need states it satisfies, he told the Omnishopper International conference (Barcelona, November 2017). Soft drinks address indulgent need...

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