Ocean Sprays links its fortunes to a beetle

JUNE 1999

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Ocean Sprays links its fortunes to a beetle

11/14/99 In its newest advertising promotion, Ocean Spray has linked forces with the Beetle, or 99 of them to be exact. Volkswagen's successful syncopated television ads were produced by Arnold Communications. This is the same company that handled the Ocean Spray Wellfleet Farms account. The new Ocean Spray ads picture a red, or more likely, a cranberry colored VW Beetle. These ads are targeting consumers who find this  "UNDENIABLY DISTINCTIVE CAR!" the "coolest car on the street". The campaign involves a tried and true bottle top contest. Will this advertising strategy influence the core consumer?  HB


How Northland grabbed a market share from Ocean Spray

6/11/99 Mediaweek/Adweek writer Mira Schwirtz calls it "ground zero in the cranberry wars." Lakeville, Massachusetts? No, she's describing the tranquil Nekoosa West cranberry bog in central Wisconsin, where "the placid water reflects the clear blue sky and the changing colors of the surrounding trees" prior to fall harvest. The scenery gave no indication of the heated battle that Northland Cranberries was about to begin when, in 1997, they launched their "100% juice" advertising campaign aimed squarely at their only real rival in the $721 million cranberry juice market. Continued Here.


From BrandStrategy

Is your brand creating equity?

NEW 6/12/99 Only strategically driven brands stand out. Says David Aaker, author of Managing Brand Equity and Building Strong Brands," must generate customer loyalty, name awareness, brand association and perceived quality to build equity." Read article here


John Decas on the Crisis in Cranberries
Source: Cranberry News, Vol. 3 - No. 1

Ed. Note: Cranberry News is published by Decas Cranberry Sales, Inc., 219 Main St.,Wareham, MA. 02571 Telephone (508) 295-0147for those connected to or interested in the cranberry industry. Anyone wishing to be added to their mailing list can contact the company. Stressline ezines are not associated with Cranberry News or any other print or electronic publications.

6/8/99 Wareham, Mass -  Decas Cranberry Sales is a major independent handler and processor of cranberries in Massachusetts. They also market cranberry products under the Paradise Meadows Cape Cod Cranberries label. As such, the company is a competitor of Ocean Spray. John C. Decas has shared his opinions and ideas about the current crisis in the industry in his "Straight from the Vine" column in this month's edition.

Decas scores Ocean Spray particularly hard for the cooperative's "early commitment program" which offers discounts to independent processors if they commit to their orders in July. Why, asks Decas, "is Ocean Spray willing to sell berries below cost to their competitors and at the same time work hard to enlarge their handle by encouraging bog expansion?"

Decas believes that   this practice has been a major cause of crisis in the marketplace. He underscores this by emphasizing the irony of Ocean Spray spokesmen blaming the low prices of private label juices as a factor in Ocean Spray's losing a competitive edge, when in fact they are contributing to the success of private labels by selling them cranberries at a discounted price. Continued here


Sunsweet to sell sweetened dried cranberry product
Source: The Produce News, 5/24/99

prunes.gif6/10/99 Sunsweet, the largest name in that tasty and healthy but much maligned shrunken plum market, is about to offer the consumer yet another chance to  become enamoured of the sweetened dry cranberry. The 650 member California co-op is breaking into the dried fruit category with a number of  mixed and single fruit products.

The dried sweetened cranberries have been named Cranlings and will be sold in a 6 oz, zippered stand-up bag along with Tropical Mix, Mediterranean Apricots, Dried Peaches and Dried Nectarines.


Everyone has to drink something
department:

Pepsi to sell bottled water in India
Source: Business Line, 6/2/99

6/9/99 It was only a matter of time before the international marketing wizards at beverage giant PepsiCo realized that good old fashioned clean water might be highly marketable for the right price in certain parts of the world.  Plans are underway to bottle and sell water in India by October.   Pepsi has five brands of pure drinking water they sell elsewhere on the international market.A spokesperson for Pepsi states that "It would be a pure drinking water but would not contain minerals and neither would it be sourced from a spring."


On the Web:

With rumors rampant, Ocean Spray Extra-net gives growers timely news

6/17/99 The Ocean Spray Extranet, the password protected web site for Ocean Spray lived up to its "information age" potential yesterday in putting to rest rumors that were flying all day about the future of the cooperative. Online growers around the country had immediate access to this news, which was quickly shared with grower/ owners who have yet to join the computer age.

The Grower Relations news section now takes advantage of Internet technology by including images. For example, those interested in an advanced look at the labels of soon to be introduced products can see them on the web site.


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On keeping Ocean Spray
"Grower owned and grower run"
DEBATE

Randy Jonjak - Tom Gelsthorpe

6/14/99 Tom Gelsthorpe continues the discussion:

First Randy, I offer my sincere apologies for putting words in your mouth on the subject of Proctor & Gamble's knowledge of agriculture. I know how infuriating it is to be misquoted. The wrong words were entirely my fault -- simple laziness in failing to look up the exact remark.

I hope hurt feelings do not distract from the main question in that regard: Why is it that knowledge of agriculture is so important that a company selling a farm-based product must have a Board expert in agriculture and virtually nothing else?

Second, I hope you will reconsider continuing this debate. I believe we are performing a valuable service in giving readers food for thought. Anyone who might "lose patience with our verbosity" can simply scroll on to other articles.

In my estimation, we disagree about surprisingly little -- our analysis of current problems is about the same; we seem to differ on probable solutions. I once felt as you do, that the coop was the best arrangement for the grower, and might be viable indefinitely. I don't believe I have ever implied that Ocean Spray was an "ill-conceived concept from the beginning." I think it was an excellent concept that worked for many years. What I now believe is: as a marketing coop, Ocean spray has outgrown its usefulness, due to its inability to maintain crop share, market share, premium price advantage to its members and capital requirements for competing in increasingly larger-scale markets. Why resist acknowledging facts or proposing restructuring to adjust to them?

CONTINUED HERE

Part  One | Part Two | Part Three


Fortune Articles:

Why CEOs Fail

6/10/99 After studying several dozen failed CEOs over a few decades, Ram Charan and Geoffrey Colvin, writing in this month's Fortune Magazine, conclude that "it's rarely for lack of smarts or vision." Most CEO's fail, they contend, because of bad execution, because they don't get things done, are indecisive or don't deliver on commitments.

The lengthy Fortune article, available on the web, includes sections entitled "The excuses and rationalizations that CEOs concoct", "Six habits of highly ineffective CEOs", "Five signs of failure", "I'll even pay you to leave", and "The superior CEO: a profile." You can read the entire article by clicking here.

CEOs in Denial

Believing your own annual report is but one way CEOs can imperil their jobs and their companies according to Patricia Sellers.

There's something in the nature of CEOs--pride, vanity, a primal need for control, an obsession with success, good old-fashioned idealism--that makes many smart, well-regarded chief executives into idiots when the world turns against them. They rationalize. They justify. They circle their wagons, build their bunkers, mollify their troops. They claim themselves "victims" of their "situations."

You can read the article here


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Includes Contents for May editions and Guestbook