Cranberry Stressline

July 15-21, 1999

 

The Cola Kings

Pepsi Up, Coke Down

7/21/99 Nobody on Wall Street was surprised about Coke's slip in profits, but the Street apparently was taken by surprise when Pepsico reported their quarterly earning yesterday. Operating profits were up to $467 million compared to $435 million for the same quarter last year. Tropicana sales were up 12 percent to $533 million in the quarter, led by a 7 percent increase in Tropicana Pure Premium sales.

Ed. comment: If a beverage giant acquires Ocean Spray, obviously they will move significantly towards dominating the juice aisle. Of the big two, Coca-cola  would seem to need a boost to come back from the month of setbacks, and owning both Motts and Ocean Spray makes an excellent fit. The fantasy (below) could have just as easily been written about a marriage between apples and cranberries, Nantucket Nectars and a resurrected Fruitopia. Ocean Spray could create a line of orange blends which would sell under the Minute Maid label and give Tropicana a run to its money. But certainly, if one of the companies has the cash, Pepsico wins hands down.


spot.gif (2436 bytes) InYourDreams Advertising to handle Ocean Spray-Tropicana  Nuptials - or, it could wedded bliss with Coke.....
Fantasy
by Hal Brown

7/19/99 Middleboro, MA - BogWire Exclusive - Pepsico, which recently acquired down- and- almost- out Ocean Spray, has retained the premier advertising agency, InYourDreams, to develop a campaign to tout the joining of both the Ocean Spray red drink line with the Tropicana orange drink line and their offspring, Nantucket Nectars and (NOT) Snapple. CORRECTION: Thanks to an alert reader who pointed out the following error: Snapple is not owned by Pepsi. It is owned by Triarc.

 

Continued

 


Ocean Spray:

Did you know?

7/21/99 The following information was published in a copyrighted Cowles/Simba Information article:

dot.gif (917 bytes) Among the 100 individuals to lose their jobs at Ocean Spray in the recent 15% staff reduction was promotion director Bob Fallon. Vice president of retail sales John Emerson left Ocean Spray in March.

dot.gif (917 bytes) The promotion unit moved into the marketing department under vice president for marketing Stu Gallaggher who reports to senior vice president Nancy McDermott.

dot.gif (917 bytes) The estimated annual advertising budget for Ocean Spray is $40 million.

dot.gif (917 bytes) Instead of the usual reliance on heavy television advertising, there will be more promotion, public relations and print. Chris Phillips is quoted as saying "we need to spend aggressively to turn things around."

 dot.gif (917 bytes) Last year Ocean Spray spent $32 million on television advertising and $2 million on print.

 dot.gif (917 bytes) On abandoning Wellfleet Farms for Ocean Spray Premium 100% Juices,  Chris Philips is quoted as saying "we weren't leveraging the full value of the Ocean Spray name, it was confusing for consumers."

 

 

"Ocean Spray": A miscellaneous sampling from the web 1997 to 1999

Stories Cranberry Stressline Missed

7/20/99 Cranberry Stressline began as a little home page devoted mostly to pictures and a few stories about life on the bogs in 1997. Then it added five or six articles about how to cope with farm stress. Only after the 1998 Ocean Spray Annual Meeting did it shift focus to deal with the crisis in the cranberry industry and the controversies whirling around the management of Ocean Spray. Once we started searching the web it became apparent that there was a wealth of information not readily available to those interested in the cranberry industry. By March there weren't too many items on the web that escaped our searches.

Prior to that, items appeared on the web and by and large they received little if any further publicity. Better late than never, Stressline has done a retrospective web search and you can take a look at the results here.


Is there a Pepsi in Ocean Spray's future?
Hal Brown

7/16/99 The Boston Consulting Group was obviously helping a large corporation take a thorough and intensive look at Ocean Spray. There was speculation as to whether they were working for one of the big three beverage companies or a huge multinational food company. Now it looks like a beverage company with much to gain from adding Ocean Spray to its line is seriously interested in acquiring the cooperative.

It only takes some good shopping sense to look at the juice aisle and imagine the marriage between Ocean Spray and Tropicana. The cranberry blends of Ocean Spray are complementary to the orange blends from Pepsi's Tropicana. Both brands have a "good for you" reputation and their quality is unquestioned. The names together even conjure up similar oceanic imagery.

There has been much debate among Ocean Spray grower/ owners about the pros and cons of being acquired by a larger company. Regardless of which side one takes, there can be little argument that a company like Pepsico reveals a tremendous amount of information to the public. For example, you can read excerpts from a recent SEC filing here, and learn how much the CEO earns overall, why he is currently earning a salary of one dollar a year, how much the retiring CEO received as a compensation package, the qualifications of the Board of Directors and how much they are paid to serve on the board. Similar information about Ocean Spray has been withheld from the grower/ owners of Ocean   Spray. You can also find a vast array of information about the inner workings of Pepsico on the corporate web site at www.pepsico.com, and about Tropicana on their business web site www.tropicana.com/biz.

In light of the news that Pepsi may indeed be an active suitor, I'm putting the following article back on the front page:

Making Peace with Pepsi
Hal Brown, Editor

6/24/99 Ocean Spray has had a rocky relationship with Pepsico, many of the details of which are described in the somewhat sarcastic United State Circuit Court ruling which can be read by clicking here. The bad blood with Pepsi is rooted in many poor decisions made by Ocean Spray management. It also involves Pepsico's breaking a contractual promise not to distribute single serve products (Tropicana in this case) which competed with Ocean Spray. I am certain that Pepsico fully understands how the conflicts evolved and who the players were. With these players no longer in place, a whole new picture may emerge, making Ocean Spray once again an attractive partner for a strategic relationship that would benefit both companies.   Continued

More about Pepsico on the web:Essay in Time about Pepsi vs arch rival Coca-Cola | Overview of Pepsico from Hoovers Online, including an overview of the entire beverage industry here. | A snapshot of the corporate culture at Pepsico from Vault Reports.


HUMOR:

spot.gif (2436 bytes) InYourDreams Advertising to handle Ocean Spray-Tropicana  Nuptials
Fantasy by Hal Brown

7/19/99 Middleboro, MA - BogWire Exclusive - Pepsico, which recently acquired down- and- almost- out Ocean Spray, has retained the premier advertising agency, InYourDreams, to develop a campaign to tout the joining of both the Ocean Spray red drink line with the Tropicana orange drink line and their offspring, Nantucket Nectars and Snapple. Continued

 


Cranberry Stressline welcomes farm humorist Brent Olson

7/17/99 Brent Olson is a well known humorist, public speaker and author. Even though he admits to knowing nothing about growing cranberries, the fact that he raises 1200 acres of corn, wheat, and soybeans also qualify him as a farmer. In additon to being a dirt farmer like us, he farrow-to-finishes hogs, whatever that means. It sure sounds like we don't want to end up where the "finished" porkers do.

Brent knows something about laughter being good medicine for stress. In fact, this year he's going to be the keynote speaker at the Rural Mental Health Conference.

Brent lives on the edge of the praire in western Minnesota, which sounds pretty much like the wild west. His wife, Robin, is the program director at a rehabilitation center for disabled adults. The Olson's have three children

His weekly column, Independently Speaking, will be a regular feature in Cranberry Stressline. It is also carried by newspapers and is distributed nationwide by DTN/FarmDayta.

Some of our detractors may suggest his column fits in with the rest of Cranberry Stressline as it is alleged to contain more lies than one would hope to find in a serious publication. Alas, at times it is even educational, and occasionally inspiring.

Several of Brent Olson's essays on life in the Midwest are collected in his new book: The Lay of the Land; A View from the Prairie, published by J&L lee Co., PO Box 5575, Lincoln NE 68505. ( 888-665-0999).

He enjoys feedback, and if the sows aren't farrowing or the beans don't need to be sprayed he may even respond. He can be reached at: bolson@infolink.morris.mn.us


Independently Speaking
Publication Date July 15

Well, I'm jealous
by Brent Olson

Some friends of ours had a unique experience last week.   They had a marriage bonding moment and also got to add a really neat line to their resumes.

Their adventure all started with a horse.  A big, beautiful, Palomino horse, to be exact. These people have had horses for years, but oddly enough, only the male member of the marriage is really fascinated with horses.  The female member appreciates the esthetic qualities of horses, but really prefers to admire them from a distance. Continued


7/16/99 Editors Note: Bain & Co. is a top tier strategic management consulting company, often mentioned as ranking with McKinsey and The Boston Consulting Group as the kind of company that can offer the expertise to turn a beleaguered and foundering company around. If the fact that four out of eight web site profiles of "Bainies" (as they're know in the business) are in Boston is any indication, this office is one of their preeminent ones. Various O.S. board members when asked directly if Ocean Spray had retained Bain would not comment. It remains inexplicable why this information should remain confidential. Regardless, this press release makes interesting reading.

Company Press Release

Bain & Company Releases 1998 Tools & Techniques Survey: Strategic Planning On Top, Knowledge Management Scores Low for Satisfaction & Usage
    
Annual `Tools & Techniques' Survey Shows Management Tool Usage Remains High;

No Correlation Between Number of Tools Used and Satisfaction Levels

  BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 15, 1999--   Bain & Company, a global strategy consulting firm, today released the results of its annual "Tools & Techniques" survey, profiling the usage and effectiveness of management tools among 631 global companies. The study, based on an analysis of 25 management tools, found that the usage remains high, with an average of thirteen tools used by each company. But 82 % of executives surveyed believe that tools promise more than they deliver. Continued

 


 

Cranberry Stressline in Newsletter

7/14/99  The Washington State University Cooperative Extension Service Newsletter had the following to say about Cranberry Stressline in their June newsletter:

"Information is power and the more you know, the better you can make decisions. There is some great dialogue on the current situation with cranberries on (Cranberry Stressline). Some of it is a little harsh, but interesting, nonetheless."

WSU Cooperative Extension Service Web site

 


Editorial Notes:

Is Cranberry Stressline an original news source?
Explaining sources and hyperlinks

7/15/99 I've recently been made aware of possible confusion about the use of hyperlinks in Cranberry Stressline. Some may have erroneously assumed that when a source is listed under a headline with a link to another web site, that what follows is a republication of an article from another web site. This has never been the case.  "Source" was listed to show only where some   information on which a Stressline article was based originated, where the author got some of his ideas, and to lead curious readers to that link. I learned that a cursory review of Stressline might suggest to some that it isn't really news media   from Katrina Veeder at Business Wire. She wrote in an email that Stressline "does not appear an original news source.   Hyperlinks to outside editorial sources will not satisfy this requirement."

The ideas for articles in Cranberry Stressline come from interviews, observations, your own contributions in the Forum, Op-Ed pieces, email, confidential sources, and of course other publications. Stressline also includes relevant press releases, which are published verbatim, and clearly labeled as such.

Cranberry Stressline endeavors to report news about the cranberry industry, to comment on issues related to cranberry farming, and to offer a forum for readers.

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Earlier July articles:   July 8 - 14, 1999 | July 1- 7, 1999

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