1. Daniel
Lawrence
1
San Pellegrino SWOT Analysis
Guiding Research Question (RQ)
• How can Pellegrino tap into the college student market, while maintaining our brand
image and keeping our ideals consistent?
• What is San Pellegrino's current market profile? What broader lifestyle insights can be
gained about our current consumers? How does this compare to our new target market?
• What is Pellegrino's reputation?
• Which competitors are threats to our current brand? Why are they threats?
DATA
Current Market Profile- Our Typical Consumer
MRI showed me the interests and lifestyles of the usual Pellegrino consumer. Using the
indexes for specific categories, I was able to get a good sense of who that customer is. Here is
what I gathered from the information:
Raw Data (For the average Pellegrino Consumer)*:
Category Male (age
35-44)
Education:
Post
Graduate
Education:
Graduated
College
Plus
Age Group
(25-34)
[35-44]
Career
(Business
and
Financial)
Income
($150,000
+)
Home
Value
($500,00
0+)
Ethnicity
(Asian)
[White]
Index 143 229 199 (119)
[143]
226 226 257 (161) [115]
Category Television:
HBO/ShowTime
Television:
Ovation
Television:
Tennis
Channel
Web Sites:
Spotify.com
Web
Sites:
PBS
Web Sites:
Wikipedia
Index 145/152 227 217 173 303 195
*These figures were chosen because they show the higher and more diverse indexes of the
groups.1
1
MRI Plus. “Spring 2014 Product Beverages.” Accessed September 1, 2015.
http://ureporter.mriplusonline.com/selectdemo.asp.
Category Magazine-
Food
(Many
types)
Magazine-
The New
Yorker
Magazine-
Cigar
Aficionado
Magazine-
Yoga
Journal
Magazine-
Mother
Nature
News
Magazine-
Macworld
(and many
other tech)
Magazine-
Boating
/Salt
Sportsman
Magazine-
The
Economist
Index All 200+ 418 295 402 355 266 280/504 537

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Lawrence
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A typical consumer of Pellegrino is a 35-44 year old male (Caucasian or Asian) with
some sort of Post Grad degree. This consumer works at in the financial or business field in the
northeast and makes over $150,000 a year. Their home value is over $500,000. This group seems
to be interested in food, boating, and technology. They probably subscribe to Yoga magazines
because of their stressful jobs and own boats (or dream of owning one) to take advantage of the
short weekends they get off. They attempt to keep up with fashion (or at least someone in the
family does) and also have a vested interest in Mother Nature. Our target does use technology
and takes advantage of new services available. They are not laggards.
So what does this mean for San Pellegrino and our new target market?
Well, a few things are brought to light because of this secondary research analysis. First,
our typical consumer is well off. The male dominated market is well educated and old enough to
have a steady, high-paying occupation. Most of their college loans are under control so they have
more money to spend on high-end goods like San Pellegrino. Second, we now know that the
target consumer, we are interested in reaching out to, is not very different from the consumer that
we already market to. The biggest exception to this statement stems from the price point of San
Pellegrino, which is something that will be analyzed later in this report. College Students, by
their very definition, are well educated and interested in expanding that knowledge with
information sources, albeit, using online articles instead of magazines. Boating, yoga, outdoor
activities, nature, technology, etc. are all interests that both, our current consumers and our new
target consumers share. All we have to do is figure out the media sources used by college
students, which are available both from secondary sources and from primary research techniques.
Third, when one looks at the data from previous years on MRI, a trend immerges. The index for
San Pellegrino has been gradually increasing in the 18-24 year old group, which shows potential

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for our campaign and attempts verifies my theory that college students are interested in similar
topics as our current market.
à Same Industry Competition
• Perrier
• Schweppes
• La Croix
• Seagram
• Sparkling Ice (Only for flavored
varieties)
Perrier will be one of biggest competitors, especially for the “college age” (18-24)
students that we are interested in targeting. According to MRI, Perrier has a 105 Index, while
Pellegrino has a 65. Schweppes and Seagram are other competitors, but their index is much
lower than ours (in the 40’s).2
According to Statistica, San Pellegrino has 11.1% of the market share this year.
Sparkling Ice and Perrier lead the industry with market shares of 26.8% and 13.1% respectfully.
La Croix follows with 6.1% of the market share. Glacèau Fruitwater trails Pellegrino with 4.4%
(which was surprising to me).3
According to a 2015 Poll done by Statista, focusing on sales of leading bottled sparking
water brands, San Pellegrino fell below Sparkling Ice, Perrier, and La Croix in total sales. San
Pellegrino did beat out Schweppes and Glacèau Fruitwater though.4
This information is important because it shows our direct competition’s market share of
the beverage category. Perrier and Sparkling Ice lead the industry and currently control more of
the college-aged consumers. This is a major threat for our potential in this new market. One way
to attempt to counteract this problem is to look at the campaign styles of our competition. We
2
MRI Plus. “Spring 2014 Product Beverages.”
3
Statista.
“Market
Share
of
Leading
Bottled
Sparkling
Water
Brands
In
the
US.”
Accessed
September
1,
2015.
http://www.statista.com/statistics/252421/market-share-of-leading-bottled-sparkling-water-brands-in-the-us/.
4
Statista.
“Sales
of
the
Leading
Bottled
Sparkling
Water
brands
In
the
US.”
Accessed
September
1,
2015.
http://www.statista.com/statistics/252416/sales-of-the-leading-bottled-sparkling-water-brands-in-the-us/.

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can use this insight to help guide our initial campaign launch. I believe I have a solution; we
release a low calorie, healthy version of our Fruit Beverage line. That, along with other
promotions for the original mineral water should be enough to gain traction in the industry. Of
course, that is easier said than done and more research is needed (including primary) to figure
out what damage that might do to our existing brand.
à Similar Industry Competition
This section will take a look at a few of the more common beverage categories to
compare their popularity for college-aged consumers (18-24). The reason for researching the
general industries is to understand how we compare to our competition in a more general sense.
The Water Industry
-The water industry has an index of 109.
The Soda Industry
-The soda industry has an index of 127.
Iced Tea Industry
-The iced tea industry has an index of 125.
Energy Drink Industry
-The energy drink industry has an index of 213. 5
According to MRI Plus, the water industry has the lowest index and thus they have the
lowest potential for usage in
the population as a whole. So
what could the industry do to
improve their position? Water
is boring and something easily
obtainable from almost any
source for free, but sparkling
5
MRI Plus. “Spring 2014 Product Beverages.”
Figure 1: Percentage of people whom consumer sugary drinks everyday. (Fruit
drinks, sodas, energy drinks, sports drinks, and sweetened bottled waters,
etc

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water is different. Pellegrino should be serving a larger market, especially with their “Fruit
Beverages” line. Pellegrino is healthier than soda, safer than an energy drink and as natural as
water—just ask da Vinci. Our threat stems from other sugary drinks, which have a horrible
reputation for leading to obesity and other health related problems, yet people still consume an
incredible amount of them. Figure 1 illustrates the percentage of people who drink sugary drinks
on an average day.6
About 55%-70% of our target market consumes these drinks daily, so this is
no small threat. We need to highlight the health benefits of our Natural Mineral Water, emphasis
our reduced sugar levels in our flavored beverages. Coca-Cola cans contain 39 grams of sugar,
Pepsi cans contain 41 grams, and our beverages hover around the lower 30s.7
Most college-aged
consumers are interested in living long and successful lives, so we can use this to our
advantage by promoting our healthier drink alternatives.
à Price (Threat/Weakness)
The price of a 12-pack of Coca-Cola is around $4.68, while the price of a 12-pack of S.
Pellegrino Natural Mineral Water hovers around $10.99. The price of Pellegrino is more than
double that of the Coca-Cola cans, granted the Pellegrino bottles provide nearly 5 more ml but
Coca-Cola is still 3.25 cents per fl. Oz., while Pellegrino is 5.42 cents per fl. oz. Perrier
fluctuates from 5 cents to 6 cents per fl. oz. Sparkling Ice Spring Water is priced around 5
cents a fl. oz. as well. On average bottled water cost about 1.2 cents per fl. oz.8
This price comparison illuminates another threat for us, but also revealed a benefit. We
are competitively priced within the sparkling water industry, so at the moment we have no
recognizable threat due to pricing within our immediate industry. Our biggest threat involving
pricing is beverages of similar categories, such as the soda market and even the flat-water
6
Cynthia L. Ogden, Brian K. Kit, Margaret D. Carroll, and Sohyun Park. “Consumption of Sugar Drinks in the
United States, 2005-2008”. Accessed September 2, 2015. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db71.pdf.
7
Calorie
Count.
Accessed
August
30,
2015.
http://www.caloriecount.com.
8
Amazon.
Accessed
September
2,
2015.
www.amazon.com.

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market. This threat is one of significance, especially because our group is attempting to target the
average college aged consumer, who in most cases, lack the financial resources of our primary
age groups.
An average student spends about 12% of his/her budget on food and other types of
expenses. Room and board, tuition, and other discretionary items like technology, clothes, and
cosmetics take up the other 88%. The average monthly income is $1,200/month, so roughly $144
per month goes to food shopping along with other small purchases.9
This small amount does not
leave much room for luxury goods like Pellegrino, when similar products are cheaper and this is
exactly why we need to create impactful advertising using the proper media sources. An $11 12-
pack would be 13% of that budget, so we need to show that drinking Pellegrino is worth that
13%.
à Perception (Threat/Weakness)
n The Mystery of Mineral Water
After analyzing a few sources (Amazon.com reviews, MRI, and Blog/Vlog Reviews),
most of the San Pellegrino consumers drink it as a treat, or as a substitute for an unhealthy
option. Consumers also do recognize the potential health benefits, but exactly how beneficial
Pellegrino is for the body is still being debated. Even the consumers, who engage with the
product online, are unsure if the potential benefits outweigh the cost of a bottle. Just search San
Pellegrino in Google and within minutes you will see the ongoing debate I am speaking of. *
Online social sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogs, and product review
discussion boards can supply brand-building earned advertising (Praise) or unwanted and
negative attention. In this case, an uninformed target leads to less social praise and eventually to
lower brand awareness, brand recognition, and brand recall.
9
Nationwide
Insurance.
“College
Student
Spending
Habits.”
Accessed
September
2,
2015.
http://www.nationwide.com/college-­‐student-­‐spending-­‐habits-­‐infographic.jsp.

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From my research, San Pellegrino Natural Sparking Water seems to have a few benefits
including low sodium, zero calories, a small amount of calcium and a few other minerals like
sulfate.10
So this begs the question, why is Pellegrino not taking advantage of this by informing
their customer base? In this case, an informed consumer is better than a skeptical consumer. This
is a threat to the San Pellegrino brand. If we can exploit this to our benefit, we can turn a threat
into an opportunity.
Here is an excerpt from a blog, which compares Perrier to Pellegrino. He admits he likes
Pellegrino more but explains a few problems and highlights their non-existent campaign.
“If you were basing your decision on advertising alone, Perrier would win hands down. Not only
do they have clever marketing, but unlike Pellegrino they are actually making an effort. Still, for
some like me, ultimately it all comes down to taste and texture. I prefer Pellegrino, but Perrier
is cheaper and easier. Solution? Perrier at the house, Pellegrino in small bottles when I go
out. Case closed.”11
One thing to note is that Pellegrino does run a successful advertising campaign, “Live in
Italian,”12
but many consumers obviously do not see them, especially college aged consumers.
We need to reshape our advertising process and change the minds of our consumers. We live in
an advertising world where customer interaction is key to brand awareness and brand loyalty.
Let’s start involving the customer.
To get to the younger, college-aged individuals, a company must put an effort forth.
Pellegrino does have a few collaborations and sponsorships, but there is much more to breaking
into the Gen X market than a few attempts. We should take these outside competitive threats to
heart and begin applying a new direction to our advertising. Sponsoring concerts and other
10
Bulletproof Blog. Accessed August 30, 2015. https://www.bulletproofexec.com/mineral-water-benefits-
pellegrino-sulphates/.
11
Scout
Network
Blog,
The.
Accessed
August
30,
2015.
http://www.scoutnetworkblog.com/2012/03/13556/whats-­‐the-­‐difference-­‐between-­‐perrier-­‐and-­‐san-­‐
pellegrino/.
12
Nestle
Waters.
“S.Pellegrino’s
New
International
Campaign.”
Accessed
August
30,
2015.
http://www.nestle-­‐waters.com/media/featuredstories/spellegrinos-­‐new-­‐international-­‐campaign.

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target-oriented events could help. Maybe just promotion is necessary, maybe a full fledged
campaign is needed, but one thing is for sure, we NEED to get our name in the minds of
consumers before the cheaper (and less tasty) Perrier takes over the market, or another
international company takes our place in the mineral water category.
* Links to a few websites debating benefits
http://www.drbriffa.com/2005/01/23/sparkling-water/
http://perfecthealthdiet.com/2014/03/mineral-water/