Winnie The Pooh Roo Juice looks in doubt
The future of Coca-Cola’s drink for toddlers, Winnie The Pooh Roo Juice, looks uncertain following its delisting from supermarkets and a lack of marketing investment.
According to insiders, the product, launched in the UK in 2002 after a global deal between Coca-Cola and Disney, has proven a poor seller.
Roo Juice, a juice, water and natural flavourings drink, is aimed at the under-fives, but a spokeswoman says that under Coca-Cola’s self-imposed guidelines of not marketing to children under 12, the product has only been promoted to mothers.
Children’s juice drinks came under fire from a recent survey carried out by Food Magazine. The survey attacked the products for being essentially “watered-down juice”. Roo Juice was named as having a 55 per cent juice content.
The drink was originally trialled exclusively with Tesco in July 2002 before being rolled out to other retailers in the September. However, over the past few months stores, including Sainsbury’s, Asda and Tesco, have delisted it. It is still sold in Boots and Woolworths.
Coca-Cola confirms that there are no further plans to market the product and says: “It’s a small, but niche product.” Soul was appointed to handle advertising following the launch and Coca-Cola spent £208,000 on advertising in the year to March (Nielsen Media Research).
