Brand Limca facing a marketing dilemma

This is a bit rare and hence interesting.

Brand positioning typically doesn't change often.

Even less frequently is it seen, that a brand moves

from communicating a functional benefit to an emotional benefit back, to adding the functional benefit.

Participants of my course of Brand Marketing would

know that typically, the best communication is focused on the insight and the emotional benefit. Brands try to transition to that state from talking about functional benefit and reason to believe over a long period of time.

Limca has moved in the other direction and hence the reason to believe of "Lime and lemony" have also come back.

To be fair it’s not a major change, the brand has over the years swung between "Refreshment leading to moments of joy" to "Refreshment from lime and lemony limca leading to the ability to do more".

Depending on which statement you like better you'll

like the respective communication made. That BTW is broadly how you test an ad-cept.

Lets look at the communication linked to the first positioning statement. "Refreshment leading to moments of joy"

Now lets look at the new positioning statement. "Refreshment from lime and lemony limca leading to the ability to do more".

I prefer the former but there is a good reason for Limca to have moved to the later.

The reason for this change seems to be an attempt to restore the relevance of an established 30-year-old brand property, The Limca Book of records.

The Limca book of records stands for achievements. Limca as a brand over the past decade has not.

At this stage it might make sense to look at the older advertisement on limca, from the days when it was a truly Indian brand.

So, as I see it, you have three options:

1) Throw away the brand property, its no longer relevant to the brand.

2) Reposition the brand to achievement.

3) Rename the book of records to the "Thumsup book of records".

The Coca-Cola Company owns both the brands and though not perfect it is a better fit.

Let me know what option you would go with or if there is a fourth way.