Boost is the secret of my energy.....

A few days ago, my office got Horlicks + Boost vending machines installed on every floor and they've been an instant hit. Talking from personal experience, my coffee consumption has suffered drastically and Chocolate Horlicks is the flavor of the season.

From "I live on Caffeine" to "Boost is the secret of my energy" was a quick transformation. It just goes to show how volatile the consumer market is right now and I think it was a brilliant move, albeit delayed on the part of Glaxo SmithKline to come out with vending machines.

I also just found out that GSK owns many of the major brands in the Health Food Drinks(HFD) segment, right from Horlicks (with a 59% market share) to Viva and Maltova which are recent acquisitions.

Now, this was surprising to me, as I always thought that Bournvita would be the most preferred brand. That's what we got at our campus cafeteria and also, Bournvita Quiz Contest. A second thought that occurred to me at almost the same moment was that I don't really like the original Horlicks. I always have the Chocolate variant. Now this is my hypothesis (and I'm too tired right now to validate it) that Bournvita's steadily increasing market share caused GSK to launch a Chocolate variant of Horlicks. They might have tried (either before or after) to pitch Milo in the chocolate flavored category, but then brand value bhi koi cheez hai!.

I wonder if they'll go the Coca Cola way and declare that every beverage, including water, is competition to them. Should be interesting to see how things pan out if Baristas are competing with Horlicks bars (not as in candy bar, but as in coffee bar).

Image source: The Hindu Business Line

(This post was updated from the original later the same day!)

Tags:

• Health+Food+Drinks
• Workplace
• Beverages