Anything… Whatever… Really?
Posted by Sant Qiu in : Singapore on October 12, 2007 , trackbackI’m starting this new category: ‘Eye On Singapore’ to write about anything that is happening in Singapore, where I’m staying. Therefore this probably relate more to Singaporeans than anybody else. Hope you like this.
If you live in Singapore you probably have heard of, maybe even come across… or even bought the new can drinks ‘Anything’ or ‘Whatever’. Those are two new brands produced by a local company ‘Out Of The Box’.
Advertising was very aggressive when they were launching the drinks a few months back. They advertised on TV, taxis, buses, bus-stops and many other media. And many people tried the drinks. Afterall they had an unusual concept.
All the consumers know is that ‘Anything’ is a carbonated drink, while ‘Whatever’ is non-carbonated. ‘Anything’ is made in six flavours: Cola, Cola with Lemon, Apple, Fizz Up, Cloudy Lemon and Root Beer. ‘Whatever’ is made in six flavours as iced tea: Ice Lemon Tea, Peach Tea, Jasmine Green Tea, White Grape Tea, Apple Tea and Chrysanthemum Tea.
But the cans have generic design so you won’t know which flavour of ‘Anything’ or ‘Whatever’ you’re getting. The concept came about from the owner’s observation that his friends and a lot of Singaporeans are just indecisive when it comes to ordering drinks. Asked “What do you want to drink?” The answer most of the time will be “Anything.” or “Whatever.” And a concept is born. It promises “A surprise in every can”.
What a brilliant concept! … … …
Really?
Just the past Sunday the owner of the company was featured in the news and he said that the drinks were doing well. There were even interests from overseas distributors looking to distribute the drinks overseas.
But will it last? Personally I doubt it.
The initial success of the drinks is probably attributed to the novelty of its concept, and the heavy advertising it did. In general people are attracted to something new and novel. They will try it out for a few times. But after that, they tend to return to something more familiar.
The idea of not knowing what you’re getting in your can might be exciting in the beginning. After all lots of us secretly need such little excitements to escape from our boring daily grind. So that “Surprise in every can” is our way of living on the edge. Such a simple concept that provides us with such powerful escape.
Ok, you caught me. I’m just being a tad sarcastic.
After the initial buzz and the novelty, it will die down and consumers will go back to buying what they want. Consumers buy Pepsi because they want to taste Pepsi’s cola. They buy ‘Jia Jia liang teh’ because they want to drink exactly that.
The younger and student segments are probably the most responsive to this type of novelty marketing. But what if they get the flavour that they don’t like, despite loving one of the flavours? Will they keep buying something that they don’t know? Will you?
At the end of the day, when the dust settles, consumers (humans) still need a sense of security of knowing that they will get what they want in exchange of their money. So this novel concept, like other novelty-based concepts will eventually fade off.
I commented on Aurum by The Clinic a few months back. Aurum is the novel restaurant cum club that uses wheelchairs in place of normal chairs and food was served on surgical trays. It received a lot of media coverage for its novel concept. Their food has received good reviews.
However, I wrote that it probably won’t last because novelty tends to fade away. And people will want to get back on sitting on luxurious chairs, especially with the kind of high-end prices they are paying there… unless they change their concept.
Recently, they announced that they’ve replaced the wheelchairs with more conventional chairs. They only kept a few for image purposes. They are now focusing more on their food. I think that’s a smart move.
But how can ‘Anything’ or ‘Whatever’ change to something more predictable/familiar? There is not much room to maneuver. Their novel concept probably guarantees them ending up as another fad.
Hi, so u know where to get their distributers in Malaysia ?
[…] You can do a lot of tactical marketing activities such as distributing flyers, advertising, etc. But if your overall strategy is wrong, then any result you get will be short lived. An example I mentioned before was the “Anything & Whatever” can drinks. They had great tactical marketing; flooding the media with ads and getting a lot of coverage. But in just a couple of short years they were gone because their business idea was fundamentally flawed. (I wrote about them before in an old article here: http://www.maneuvermarketing.com/blog/singapore/anything-whatever-really/) […]