Swiss soft drink Rivella to launch in the UK with 3.5m ad campaign

Switzerland’s second largest soft drink Rivella is to launch in the UK with a 3.5m TV advertising campaign, won by Bates Dorland after a secret pitch.

Derived from milk, Rivella is lightly carbonated, pale amber in colour and tastes of fruit and herbs. It holds about 12 per cent of the Swiss market behind Coca-Cola, thanks to its heavy association with sport.

In the UK, Rivella is to be pitched as a premium mainstream soft drink and hopes to fill a gap between mid-market products such as 7-Up or Lilt and upmarket brands like Schweppes and Perrier. It will be sold in both its original and sugar-free forms in new packaging. Bates’ campaign, expected to break in the summer, will target women aged between 20 and 30.

Originally, the brand was to have been launched through The Just Juice Company in the UK. But after the sale of Just Juice to Del Monte in December, the family-owned Rivella Group set up its own UK subsidiary and appointed former Just Juice marketer Andy Leslie as its new UK sales and marketing director.

He says: “There are plenty of carbonates in the sector, but these tend to be aimed at a much younger market. Rivella is a sophisticated product which is difficult to pigeonhole.”