Pinoys top consumers of RC Cola in the world
MANILA, Philippines - Asiawide Refreshments Corporation, licensed manufacturer and distributor of RC Cola in the Philippines, has put the country on the cola map, performing as the largest RC Cola bottler in the world.
“Nobody sells more RC Cola than Asiawide,” says Francis Lamprea, managing director of RC Cola International, during his recent visit to the local office. Lamprea, who has averaged at least two visits to the country every year for the last seven or eight years, remarked of his own astonishment that the brand has been able to penetrate the market to such a degree that RC Cola can now claim to be the most preferred cola brand in Metro Manila.
Less than a decade ago, RC Cola was not even present in the local market. Corporate and business veterans Antonio Panajon, Gerry Garcia, Butch Aves, Ricky Sandoval, and Fred Yao then decided to offer local consumers an international soft drink product that promises good if not better cola experience in terms of price and quality.
Seven years later, the Philippine team continues to prove that it is up to the challenge of going up against the big brands, of competing against new products being marketed locally and globally, of effectively distributing to a market broken up into islands, and of addressing constantly shifting consumer and retail realities.
Fresh out of university in 1977, Lamprea worked with RC Cola International in Columbus, Georgia, and then retired in 1981 to work for American Airlines. In 1991, he decided to return to RC Cola International where he continues to oversee the vital business operations of the company. “I have seen tremendous changes in consumer attitudes.” He mentioned the remarkable growth of packaged water, aside from having to compete with beverages that “share stomach space” with milk, juices, coffee, iced tea, energy and sports drinks, while also tackling health-related concerns.
“The product is the product. It contains sugar so it has calories. Is it an issue for people who are concerned about calories? Yes. But we aim at delivering a great-tasting product. This was not something that was invented last night in somebody’s garage. The company was founded in 1905. Through the years, it has been modified but the present flavor profile, what RC is today, its formulation, has been around since 1937.”
The challenges are as numerous and as diverse as there are products and consumers in the market, but one of the driving forces of RC Cola remains constant: to provide people with a symbol through which to express their individuality, and no truer is this than here, among Filipino soft drink lovers.
“With the work that Asiawide is doing with RC Cola, I think we are now at that threshold where consumers are identifying themselves with RC Cola,” relates Lamprea. “Our taste profile is different from the two big cola brands. The same way that those two brands are not for everyone, RC Cola is also not a product for everyone but by the same measurement, RC Cola is definitely the symbol for those consumers who are independent. Those individuals may not look different, but they feel different, want something different.”
The philosophy of celebrating one’s uniqueness while doing the hard and happy work of being the best that one can be serves not merely as a marketing tagline but especially as a working ethos for the Philippine-based bottlers. The Philippines’ Asiawide Refreshments Corporation stands high above its counterpart RC Bottlers in more than 60 countries around the world, so much so that the Pinoys’ best practices are already being discussed in cola boardrooms, and Lamprea believes, “will someday serve as a case study for socio-economic courses in universities.”
“The challenges of the Filipino market are quite interesting because you’re still dealing with returnable glass,” he notes. “The logistics of working with returnable glass and the decisions that have been made to supply the market here — the business model that has been adopted is one of the best practices that have been shared with other bottlers. In essence, the choice has been to have your production facilities close to the market, to the point of sale, reduce the travel that the bottles have to be doing rather than have a mega bottling plant supply the Philippines. We are working here with smaller facilities that are very agile, capable of responding to needs in a short period of time.
“What we want to do is to try to get people to taste the product and realize that through their decision to purchase RC Cola, they are being rewarded twice: 1) a great-tasting product, 2) a lower price,” he adds.” The price positioning of RC Cola allows the company the freedom to approach a broad socio-economic strata. But there is also that everyday perception that equates low price with low quality so it is imperative for RC Cola to manage the concept of value, that “quality does not have to cost more,” in order to succeed in the market.
For RC Cola, value is about delivering quality in many different forms. “It’s the whole family of issues that go around the concept of quality,” said Lamprea. This means that value is not just simply a function of taste but should involve other critical aspects like the way the product is merchandised, the way the sales people are presented, the advertising, and so on, delivering the promise of value on a daily basis.
“Asiawide is our most important client, our most important bottler,” emphasized Lamprea. The Philippine management team has led by example and it has done an incredible job of developing distribution, sales, and marketing for RC Cola. “It is outstanding what they have done in a very, very short period of time! Seven years ago they took over, seven years ago we were out of the market, and within those seven years they have done what they have done. It’s astonishing!”
