Refreshing the young

With many regulations about what children should drink, plus their own take on what they should be drinking, what to offer can be a hard decision. Sheila Eggleston reports on trends.

In a recession fuelled economy, drinks for youngsters have to be more than just 'cool', trendy and tasty to grab attention; they have to offer value for money as well. This is particularly so if they're paying for them with their own money.

According to analyst Mintel, last year's national pocket money budget was around £2.5bn a year, approximately 8% less than in 2009, with children living in London taking the brunt of these cutbacks – £3 less per week than in 2009. Interestingly, it says that in the matter of girls versus boys, the latter were more likely to spend their own money on soft drinks.

Cuts are also eating hard into the serving allowance of education meal providers, making decisions on school drinks harder than ever and the temptation, especially at primary school level, can be to skimp on the drink in favour of the meal, according to Aimia Foods, which supplies primary and secondary schools.

Brand manager Carys Delve says that's not a good strategy and there are some real alternatives. "The drink is a core part of the meal and delivers satisfaction to millions of primary schoolchildren.

"It is often the case that they leave one or more parts of their meal and as such the drink is an important vehicle to delivering both nutrition and satisfaction.

"In our survey, most schoolchildren said the drink they consume with their lunch is as important to them as the meal. Tap water might be cheap, but it is also a sure fire way to drive kids to packed lunches."

Delve describes its Juicebreak drink as "education's leading bag in box product". "It is a school compliant dilutable juice drink in clever packaging, which means no preservatives or additives. Available in orange, and apple and blackcurrant varieties, it delivers one of your 5-a-day."

The drink comes in two sizes – seven litres makes up to 490x100ml servings and its new three litre pack makes 210 servings that is ideal for smaller schools. As far as Aimia is concerned, it's a win-win situation as it saves money per meal over more expensive ready to drink products and is more environmentally friendly because of less carton and bottle waste.

Another of its products for primaries is Milkbreak in chocolate, strawberry and banana flavours. "Children love milkshakes and they are a great way to deliver calcium," says Delve.

"Simply add it to tap water and you have a delicious, cost effective milkshake, with less waste, hassle, fuss and crucially less loss. There are no messy syrups to deal with and one case delivers more than 52 pints of milkshake."

Delve says the self service, choice based menu of secondary schools brings with it an entirely different set of challenges and that understanding 11-18 year olds are established and discerning consumers is important.

Like its competitors in this teen sector such as SUSO, which has captured the attention of young adults with its eye catching cans of lightly carbonated drinks, Aimia is now targeting them with a branded range of its own.

It has just launched Zing, "the coolest new range of secondary school drinks", it claims. "Zing is fully school compliant and also adheres to the voluntary code, containing a minimum of 70% fruit juice and delivering one of a child's 5-a-day," says Delve.

"It comes in a funky designed 250ml can, which in some ways looks like the latest energy drink or 'cool to be seen with' drink. That's because we've taken a different approach with Zing and actually engaged with more than 150 students aged 11-16 years old, testing designs and researching likes and dislikes.

"What we found is that many drinks offered to this age group are rather childish in design and are unappealing to the teen market. With Zing we refined our product to ensure we had really good street appeal and were also very unisex – we think the end result is stunning and we know it will fly out of chillers from September."

An older styled but aspirational and wholesome drink selling below 70p is exactly what the secondary school market needs, she adds. The drinks come in apple, berry and tropical flavours.

Cold hot drinks were the success story of 2010, rising by 93% in value and 70% in volume, adding an extra £7m to total soft drink sales, according to the 2011 Britvic Soft Drinks Report.

This year Britvic is targeting older students with its Lipton ice tea brand, backing it with a £1m summer marketing campaign for the drink it says is driving the category. The company, which has the exclusive bottling agreement for the brand in the UK, is aiming to push sales with the tagline: 'Don't knock it, until you've tried it'.

Jon Evans, head of the seed brand team at Britvic, believes it's a category on the up – the next Innocent smoothie, and that trial sampling has won people over. "We are excited to be launching the biggest ever version of 'Don't Knock It' this summer. We know from our research that most consumers don't think they will like it before they've tried it, but once sampled, around 80% go on to buy, which is equal to the very best brands in the market."

The company says it already has listings with TUCO, Aramark, Compass, and many universities for Freshers Week.

For younger children, its Fruit Shoot My 5 drinks have replaced Britvic's Fruit Shoot 100% in the Robinsons range. The company says the My 5 200ml bottles have a bold new design that clearly communicates to consumers the "one of your 5-a-day" message.

Princes Soft Drinks marketing director Joanna Watling believes that while the children's juice drinks sector has been a hive of activity, children's pure juices have been under invested in recent years.
 
"Many parents will only let their children drink water or fruit juice but, despite this, mini sized juices have been rather overlooked.

"We spotted a gap in the market for a range of juices that have the perceived health credentials to appeal to parents combined with vibrant packaging that will appeal to children."

The company has since launched an ambient range of pure juice in handy 200ml cartons under its Jucee label, which Watling says is a first for the brand. The range includes the UK's top flavours – apple, orange and pineapple.

While NPD is vital to rejuvenate the market, the need to get behind it with good marketing initiatives is important too. Calypso Soft Drinks' dedicated marketing to youngsters includes extending its association with youth sports by launching a new Sports Anywhere campaign for 2011-2012, which includes surfing and its new addition, mountain biking, one of the fastest growing sports in the UK.

The company says Calypso Sports Anywhere aims to give youngsters living in inner cities a taste of appealing, alternative sports to promote health and exercise. The mountain biking campaign followed research undertaken by the company among 1,000 schoolchildren who were offered a range of sports and asked which one they would most like to try at school.

The top choice selected by both girls and boys aged 11-16, was mountain biking. It will be supported by on pack promotions on the company's top brand Aquajuice, and Calypso will back Sports Anywhere with advertising and point of sale. A video based website has been created – www.sportsanywhere.co.uk – and, the company claims, the UK's first mountain bike skills app is free to download for iPhone and android phones.

Meanwhile Pritchitts is driving its Viva Milk for children with a high value promotional drive offering free iPod shuffles and sports equipment.

It has repeated last year's successful campaign to get kids to drink more milk with the return of the Viva Daily Win offer, which runs until December 16 2011, which gives students aged 12-18 the chance to win an iPod shuffle every school day. This time however, if 50 or more pupils enter the free prize draw, the school's catering manager will win one and the school will receive £50 worth of sports equipment.

Pupils simply need to visit www.vivamilk.co.uk and enter the code found on the carton to be entered into the draw. Schools can also download eye-catching posters to promote the campaign.