Via is a serious contender to Nescafe

by chee leng
(Singapore)

Some time back, I wrote about "Coffee at its brightest", a campaign by Nescafe, in fact one of the largest event by Nestle to promote their coffee.

If you are still thinking why spend so much money when they are already the largest roaster in the world and sells more coffee than anyone else, here is the answer.

Via coffee by Starbucks announced that as early as June 2010, they would have 37 000 outlets selling their Via instant coffee (okay, they dun call it instant coffee)in US alonge.

That includes grocery, drug and many other retail outlets.

Sure, that does not mean it would succeed anyway, but US is a good indication. When launched, Via is a smash hit in US, and similarly it is a success in Japan.

It is believed that Starbucks would replicate its success model all over the world and by selling it into the grocery aisles, they are en roaching into Nescafe Turf.

For the longest time, no one can challenge this Coffee Giant. Perhaps, the time has come when a serious contender comes in and rock the market a little.

Personally, I believe other than marketing, Nescafe would definitely employed some trade promotion and exclusive deals to ward off this wave of penetration by Starbucks.

Now, it is how much money Starbucks would throw to grow the market. It is an expensive war (already the advertisement of coffee at its brightest is Nescafe most expensive), but the rewards would be sweet (dominating the instant coffee market can bring in Millions of dollars in sales, maybe even Billions).