Britvic axes children’s drink Juice Up ahead of Sunny Delight relaunch

Britvic Soft Drinks is axing its children’s soft drink Juice Up ahead of a £12m relaunch of Procter & Gamble’s rival product Sunny Delight.

Britvic Soft Drinks is axing its children’s soft drink Juice Up ahead of a &£12m relaunch of Procter & Gamble’s rival product Sunny Delight.

Category director Andrew Marsden, who oversaw the launch of Juice Up less than two years ago, says: “Britvic has an absolute commitment to innovation, but Juice Up has not performed as well as the other products launched at that time.”

He claims that ditching Juice Up will allow the company to concentrate on more successful brands, such as Robinsons Fruit Shoot and the adult on-trade juice drink J2O.

A Britvic spokesman says Juice Up is being discontinued because it has not performed in line with expectations in a competitive market. He refused to say if the decision was taken because of P&G’s plans to relaunch Sunny Delight.

Juice Up launched in June 2000, in a bid to counter the success of Sunny Delight. Britvic put &£8.5m of marketing spend behind the launch, including a &£1.5m television campaign created by HHCL & Partners. Triangle Communications worked on direct marketing.

Sunny Delight is to be relaunched in April, with a &£12m marketing campaign, after a root-and-branch makeover of formulation, variants and packaging.

Juice Up’s last brand innovation occurred in November last year, when an on-pack bottle collar message was added to highlight the calcium content.

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