Sam's Choice climbs beverage brand list - Wal-Mart's Sam's American Choice beverage brand

Discount Store News, Oct 4, 1993

Two diverse trends were evident in this year's Top Brands tracking of the beverages category:

* Discount store managers felt they had very little influence in merchandising beverages;

* Wal-Mart's Sam's American Choice is developing into a powerful national brand, as evidenced by beverages under this label vaulting into third place on the Top Brands listing from No. 6 last year.

While managers overall felt they had little influence in merchandising beverages, managers at Target and other upscales discounters said they had a greater say than conventional discount store managers. One sign of this was the greater citation of specialty beverages like Clearly Canadian, Snapple and Evian Water at the upscale discounters. Managers at upscale discounters mentioned these specialty beverages three to six times as often as managers at conventional chains.

There was almost no change in the number of brands mentioned--28 this year vs. 29 in 1992--and little change in the average number of brands cited as top performers, 3.3 brands this year and 3.2 labels in '92.

Eight of the 10 brands were the same--only Shasta and Hawaiian Punch broke onto the listing, while Kool-Aid and Welch's dropped off--although the rankings changed. The strong showing of Shasta specifically among Kmart managers was enough to propel this brand onto the listing.

In the eternal battle among the top two colas, Coca-Cola was No. 1 this year and Pepsi Cola was No. 2, the reverse of their standing in 1992. Each also garnered more mentions this year than last.

Colas continue to remain far and away the top beverage as far as discount store managers are concerned. Almost eight out of 10 managers mentioned one fo these two colas as the top brand, with the best showings for the other drinks being just over two out of 10 managers noting Sam's American Choice and then just over one in 10 citing other beverages. In fact, if RC, another cola, is included, then colas garnered three out of 10 spots on the Top 10 beverages listing, a dominating position for a specific type of drink.

Sam's American Choice was mentioned by 22% of the managers overall as their top performing brand, putting the label in third place. But the brand is found only in Wal-Mart, where almost seven out of 10 Wal-Mart managers mentioned it as their best performing beverage. While the brand garnered no mentions at any other chain, its standing at Wal-Mart was enough to place it ahead of all national brands except for the two top colas. [TABULAR DATA OMITTED]