WHAT IS A BLUE OCEAN BEVERAGE INNOVATION STRATEGY?
A blue ocean beverage innovation strategy has two main objectives 1. opening up new, uncluttered beverage markets 2. start brands that aren't going to require huge amounts of capital. A blue ocean beverage strategy is about creating & capturing unseen opportunity in the marketplace, if you can achieve this, the competition becomes irrelevant. Basically you are writing your own set of rules for a new kind of game, 5 Hour Energy taking the energy drink market from the cooler to the checkout countertop is a great example. Instead of competing head-on with Red Bull, Monster & Rock Star in the cooler they went to the counter alone.
RED OCEANS vs BLUE OCEANS?
Red oceans are all of the current beverage categories and products that exist today – known brands. In red oceans, beverage industry boundaries are defined and accepted, and the competitive rules of the game are known.
Here, beverage companies try to outperform other drink companies to get each other’s shelf and refrigerator space. As the shelf space gets crowded, profits and growth are reduced. Beverages become commodities, leading to cutthroat or ‘bloody’ competition. Hence the term red oceans.
Blue oceans, in contrast, describe beverage concepts or variations that do not exist today – new beverage innovations, untainted by competition. In blue oceans, demand for new drinks is created rather than competed for. There is a lot of opportunity for fast and profitable growth.
In blue oceans, competition is irrelevant because the way you innovate and market beverages is new and different. Using innovation to create wider & deeper potential in unexplored beverage market spaces. A blue ocean is enormous, deep, and dynamic in terms of profitability & growth.