Paper Boat: How a beverage brand was built mixing nostalgia with innovative packaging

The journey of the brand Paper Boat started with the search for Aam Panna, a traditional Indian summer drink. The company’s co-founders, Neeraj Kakkar, James Nutall, Suhas Misra and Neeraj Biyani, would enjoy the homemade Aam Panna brought by Suhas, with lunch. They wanted to have more of it and wanted to share it with others. They searched for it in the market but couldn’t find the drink anywhere. During this search, they found that many traditional homemade drinks, which they enjoyed in their childhood, were not available in the market. They realised that traditional drinks were slowly vanishing from people’s lives and their recipes had to be preserved for the next generation.

With an objective to preserve traditional drinks and make them available in a hygienic and packaged form, they planned to launch their own ethnic beverage brand. The team test-marketed the product in February 2013 before launching the brand Paper Boat nationally in August 2013 with two flavours – Jaljeera and Aam Panna.

Naming your product or service is the most important decision. If the name is memorable and can create a positive perception in the minds of customers, then it acts as a big differentiating factor in the crowded market. All children make paper boats. Making them in the monsoons is a happy childhood memory. Creating your own paper boat gave you a sense of accomplishment, as a child. You felt sad when your paper boat got lost or drowned, and you also felt excited when you saw it staying afloat under harsh circumstances. The team wanted to evoke childhood memories through packaged Indian ethnic drinks so they decided to come up with a brand name that could instantly connect people with their childhood memories.

The brand name Paper Boat appeared to be a perfect fit.

There are many important business lessons that can be learnt from the evolution of this brand.

Most often, companies introduce new brands in established categories and try to promote these brands via advertising. Even after spending a lot of money on advertising, these new brands are not able to develop a recall value as their categories are already crowded with established brands. One of the best ways to create a powerful brand is to create a new category where you can be the first.

Before the launch of Paper Boat, the Indian soft drink market was filled with categories such as carbonated drinks, sports drinks, energy drinks, juices and juice-based drinks. There was no category for Indian ethnic drinks and no options other than cola, fizzy, and preservatives-based drinks even if the customer was looking for it. Hector Beverages picked this opportunity and filled the gap by launching Paper Boat.

While creating a new category may sound simple, it is not. To establish a new category in the market, a lot of effort goes into educating people about the new category, creating new standards, setting up supply chains and distribution channels, applying innovation and creativity in product development and so on. But the benefit of creating a new category is that by being the first, a brand has a lot of scope to grow fast and establish itself as a market leader.

One of the biggest competitive advantages of any company is the authenticity of its products. A great product is the foundation of a great brand and good-quality ingredients are the foundation of a great product.

The company has positioned Paper Boat as a premium brand. All Paper Boat drinks are made without preservatives, added colours, or carbonation. These drinks are prepared using local spices, fruits, flowers, and pulses. The quality of these ingredients plays a very important role in the quality of the end-products and Hector Beverages has been very selective in partnering with suppliers who can provide the best-quality ingredients.

To get the best ingredients, the company has been focusing on creating a robust supply chain. All the mangoes used in Paper Boat mango drinks are naturally processed, unlike the regular way of ripening mangoes in ethylene chambers. Right now, pomegranates for the anar drink come from California, the lemons are sourced from Europe and jamuns comes from Bihar and Maharashtra. The company has also tied up with an NGO that works on sourcing ingredients from the tribal regions of Madhya Pradesh. It has also been getting seeds of purple carrots from Turkey and sowing them in Ooty. The company has two manufacturing plants, one at Manesar near Gurgaon and the other at Mysore. Both these plants are equipped to meet pharma-level standards of quality and hygiene.

To continuously innovate and improve its products, the company has looked beyond the standards of the FMCG industry and has picked up ideas and principles from diverse fields such as technology and fast fashion companies. Like technology companies, it values customer feedback and tries to adapt, change and improve its products all the time. Hector Beverages has its R&D centre based in Bengaluru, where research on 15 products takes place simultaneously. It takes around two years for a product to hit the market. Based on the product’s supply, shelf life, machinery requirement and market interest, the company launches, rejects or improves the products.

Hector Beverages has also been inspired by the way fast fashion retailer Zara introduces small special collections that remain on the rack for a short time. Hector Beverages comes up with special editions of Paper Boat drinks around festival time for about two weeks. For example, it launched Thandai during Holi, Panakam around Ram Navami, Kacchi Lassi around Baisakhi and Rose Sherbet during Ramzan. These occasional drinks have received great responses. The company is working on a plan to build a 12-month calendar to launch occasional drinks in every part of the country, every month.

Packaging plays many important roles, like giving an image to a product, attracting customers, protecting products from contamination and spoilage, providing information about the product and price, facilitating transportation of product and so on. The packaging is the first point of contact with customers when they decide to purchase a product.

Paper Boat was awarded The India Story Design Award for Packaging Design. Its packaging is interesting, innovative, and informative. It enables the serving of a traditional drink in a modern way and stands out in a cluttered market. For differentiation and authenticity, doypacks that look and feel like paper have been chosen. These packs provide the unique experience of gripping and holding the product while drinking. They are light, compact and easily transportable. Even the cap of the package is an innovation. It is pilfer-proof, visually aligned with the package and completes its shape.

It is user-friendly, that is, it can be opened with two fingers and is convenient to hold, turn and replace. The packaging graphics reflect the simplicity and purity of the drink inside. Flat colours, curvilinear shape, and brief stories covering happy childhood memories contribute to delightful nostalgia and establish an emotional relationship with customers. Additionally, these packs are approximately 50 per cent more cost-efficient than Tetra Pak. The pouches are made of a four-part laminate that makes the pack withstand extreme pressure and heat. The pouches have a 10 per cent lower carbon footprint and lower environmental impact than glass bottles, Tetra Pak cartons and PET bottles. Over time, to meet the consumption patterns of different customers, the brand’s packaging has evolved from 250 ml single serve doypacks to 500 ml and 1 litre multi-serve Tetra Pak cartons.

Excerpted with permission from Booming Brands: Inspiring Journeys of 11 ‘Made in India’ Brands, Harsh Pamnani, Westland.