Most significantly, CCA reported a decline of 21.3 per cent in total earnings; a result of the company’s loss of a number of high margin operational accounts, as well as increased pricing and marketing spend on NPD and Coke’s Colour Your Summer campaign last year.
CCA Managing Director of Australian beverages, Barry O’Connell, did however say that the investment into the Colour Your Summer campaign had returned 180,000 consumers to Coke in 2014. Mr. O’Connell also reported that the business gained 1,300 new customers last year, and hopes to gain another 1,000 in 2015.
For the year ahead, Both Mr. O’Connell and Group Managing Director, Alison Watkins, pointed to the release of more lower calorie products following the recent launch of Coke Life, as well as NPD in smaller, more premium pack sizes, as the answers to growth.
“Coke Life is just the first of a number of naturally sweetened options that we will launch across our portfolio across 2015 to 2017”, Mr. O’Connell said.
While Ms. Watkins said: “The most important factor, and the factor that we’re very focused on, is changing consumer needs – people are concerned about sugar, some people are concerned about artificial sweeteners [and] people are preferring not to drink as much. And we see that as an opportunity…we need to adapt and make sure that our offer is reflecting what consumers want today.”
2015 also marks the 100-year anniversary of the iconic Coke contour bottle. CCA will therefore be launching a new campaign around the anniversary and while Mr. O’Connell and Ms. Watkins were reluctant to reveal too much, both said that the trade can expect to see new single serve pack sizes of the contour bottle, as well as pricing changes.
CCA will also look to expand its distribution in 2015 and continue to invest in the Colour Your Summer campaign after its success in 2014.
While NPD in its non-alcohol sparkling products took core focus in the presentation, Ms. Watkins did touch on the business’ Australian alcoholic beverage portfolio. Ms. Watkins says that she is pleased with the recent take of its beer brands on draught and announced that production of Coors and Blue Moon is to begin locally – something fifth generation Coors family member David Coors hinted to last year in an interview with <i>drinks<i> bulletin.
“We’ll continue to build our alcoholic beverage portfolio by strengthening our product offering and customer servicing capability to the licensing channel. We have several strong alcoholic beverage brand owner partners, as well as the opportunity to develop complimentary CCA brands.
“2014 has been a difficult year, but we are confident that we’ve got a very good plan ahead…We do think we’re behind the worst.”
Ms. Watkins says CCA is aiming to see no further decline in EPS in 2015.
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