Creating a healthy children's drink brand

Creating a healthy children's drink

Target market

I decided that for my project I wanted to create a healthy drink for children. Being a parent myself it concerned me about the amount of sugar contained within many drinks aimed at children.  I felt that this was a definite market to be targeted. My drink brand would need to appeal to children and parents.  My primary audience would be the parents of young children (as they are the ones who are usually buying the drinks), followed by children themselves as my secondary market, who may buy the drinks with their pocket money.

Competitors

My main brand competitors are: 

-Ribena

-Fruit shoot
-Capri Sun

-Innocent Smoothies

One of the areas that is of particular interest to me is packaging that will appeal to children. I feel that many of the drinks aimed at children have quite uninspiring packaging. I believe that if I were to create packaging that would really grab a child's imagination, I would go a long way in producing a successful brand and it would give me an edge against my competitors.

I had a few ideas that came to my mind concerning this brief.

1) My first idea was a healthy jelly based drink. I know that most kids love jelly and the pre-packed jelly market is one that has really taken off lately. I felt that it would be a fun unique product that kids would love. I found that there is a jelly drink already on the market, however I know that it is not a widely known brand, so I felt there is still a gap in the market.

2) My second idea was a healthy hot drink. The idea behind this is children love being 'grown up' and having what the adults are drinking, for example tea. Parents are not keen on their children drinking tea because of the caffine, but it is a lot healthier than many of the sugary drinks on the market. My idea was to create a drink like tea for children, that would be appealing to children's tastes, it would be caffine free and be something that parents would feel happy buying.

3) My third idea was a vegetable based drink. Most parents struggle to get their children to eat vegetables and my idea was to create a product that would contain hidden vegetables mixed with fruit juice. The product would be 100% fruit and vegetable. Examples of flavours could include 'beetroot and blueberry' 'yellow pepper and orange', 'Kiwi and spinach'.  When vegetables are juiced with fruits they take on the sweetness of the fruit so they would be pleasant to drink. This concept would appeal to parents but if packaged in a really inspiring way, would appeal to children too. After researching further I discovered that Innocent Smoothies have also recently launched some drinks containing vegetables. However Innocent Smoothies seem to be appealing to adults more than children in their packaging design. 

4) My fourth idea was to re-brand water. Everyone knows that water is the healthiest drink of all however kids don't always want to drink it. I had the idea of re-branding water in an interesting way that would grab children's attention.  I could possibly add some natural flavours or colouring to water to make it more appealing to children.

Market Research

I decided that the best way forward for this project would be to carry out some market research to find out what my target market think about my ideas.  I created a survey to find out more about my target market and also to get feedback from them about my ideas.

This was the survey I created for parents of children under age 14.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/J78G73V

I shared my survey with friends via email, on social media and also in twitter.

Results of Market Research

To date I have had 22 parents complete my survey. Most of these parents had children between the age of 3 and 8.

These were the findings.

1. Water was the drink that these children drank most regularly, followed by Squash.

2. Fruit Shoot was the most popular bottled drink

3. Innocent Smoothies were considered to be the healthiest drink

4. 80% of parents felt that there was a need for a healthy children's drink on the market.

5. The three most important factors for parents when choosing a drink for their children are firstly, nutritional benefits, followed by price, followed by their children asking them to buy it.

6. Nearly 70% of parents said their children ate 5 portions of fruit or vegetables every day.

7. 67% of parents liked my idea of re-branding water, and 48% liked my idea of creating a vegetable based drink.

Here are some other comments from parents...

Whole fruit smoothies with additional healthy ingredients such as flaxseed, sprulina, spinach, etc. For hot drink options, things like peppermint and green tea with natural vanilla or honey to eliminate need for refined sugar or artificial sweeteners. Also naturally caffeine free teas would be a good option for kids. Chai teas aimed at kids would be good (loose leaf assam tea, cardamom pods, cinnamon, fennel, etc) with whole organic milk and honey - would be the healthier option to things like hot chocolate, horlicks or even nesquick... Soft drinks made from fruit juice (not from concentrate) and sparkling water. This would taste good and eliminate the need for artificial sweeteners or added sugar.

Having a child with type 1 diabetes means drinks must be sugar free, but I also don't like them having fizzy or too many artificial sweeteners so drink options are very limited...is water our only healthy option??

Hot drinks for children is not a safe concept and hence difficult to market

Natural sugars rather than sweeteners

Most parents seem to be against artificial sweeteners and also the comment about the safety issue of marking hot drinks to children is a big consideration for me.

Based on my research I will either go down the route of designing a vegetable based drink or a water drink for children.

One idea for a name for a vegetable drink was 'VEG HEADS'. The bottle lids could be made up of different character heads which children could collect.  The other idea was to create some kind of  product that could be added to water (like squash), to improve the taste of water. It could be healthier than squash and could be packaged in individual pouches, which could be handy when out and about.
One idea for the name I had was 'POWER-UP' pouch.

I will investigate these brand ideas further.

My brand values

My brand need to be..
Healthy
Fun
Happy
Exuberant
Honest
Friendly
Environmentally friendly
Sensitive/ understanding of parents
 Good value
Trustworthy
Contemporary
Natural
Organic
Pure
Unique
Youthful
Nutritious
Playful
Original
Practical
Knowledeable
Powerful
Adventurous
Dynamic
Memorable

My three most important values are

Natural, Fun, Value

My most important value is FUN.


The personality of my brand
If my brand had a character he would be superman.
If my brand went on holiday, it would go to the moon.
If my brand were a colour it would be purple and green.
If my brand were age he would be a young boy.
If my brand were a job it would be a scientist.
If my brand lived in a house it would live in a city skyscraper.
If my brand drove a car it would be beetle.
If my brand were an animal it would be a lizard or Geko.
If my brand were a country it would be America.
If my brand were a book it would be a comic.
If my brand was a piece of clothing, it would be a t-shirt.
If my brand were an art movement it would be pop art.
If my brand were a style of music it would be pop music.
If my brand were a film it would be an action film.
If my brand were a sport it would be mountain climbing.