Glaxo SmithKline: brand builders or brand bunglers?

摘要

GlaxoSmithKline has recently completed the withdrawal of its ill-starred Solstis energy drink from the UK market. It's just another episode in what sometimes seems like an unending story of beverage brand failures from a company that seems to know howto harvest old brands but not how to build new ones. GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare's brand building history has been a sony one in recent years. The company owns two of the UK's oldest-established and biggest healthy drinks brands - Lucozade, an energy drink marketed as such since 1927, and Ribena, a still blackcurrant beverage with a high vitamin C content that has been around since the 1930s. These are major brands in the UK market with Lucozade - which has been segmented into Sports and Energyvariants and given contemporary appeal - particularly strong, with sales of over ￡ 135 million ((EUR 200 million/247 million dollar) at retail and producing consistent growth But despite the muscle that comes from owning two leading brands and the massive resources at its disposal most of Glaxo's new brands and brand extensions - almost all health-oriented - have flopped.