BANGALORE: Last year, two giants Pepsi and Hindustan Lever got hitched to each other in order to exploit their respective strengths to market, sell and distribute a humble product such as tea in India. More specifically, the Lipton ready-to-drink (RTD) range of teas and tea-based beverages.

Since then, select markets in India have been seeded with Lipton Ice tea in cans, tetrapaks. Today, the duo announced that the Pepsi Lipton Alliance would be rolling out the cooling beverage in 500 ml PET bottles and 250 ml glasses. The roll out will cover 17 cities in the next few weeks.

The target audience initially would be the 500 million strong urban and later semi-urban Indian youth followed by the rural areas, which as per the alliance’s studies indicate are more health conscious and are open to trying new offerings, to experiment
 
 
At the press conference to announce the launch, Pepsi India Holdings chairman Rajeev Bakshi defined three categories of space for the Iced teas product – the fun product, the good for you product and the better for you product. He pointed out that "Litpon Iced tea is being positioned in the ‘better for you’ space model for the youth and not as another variant of tea or ‘chai’."

The launch is being strongly supported by exciting TV advertising, outdoor communication and on-the-ground promotions, adds a company release.

 
 
Both the companies are tightlipped about ad spends. All that Bakshi, while speaking to Indiantelvison.com, was willing to commit was that the budget would , "initially be more than is a norm in the industry, say at least as much as the budget during the launch of Mountain Dew."
 
 
The total carbonated soft drinks market in terms of consumer spends is
Rs 60 billion. The alliance hopes to garner between five to ten percent of
this market over the next five years.