Leveraging on reach, expansion of their customer base, demography, and maintaining sales relying on brand equity, Seven-Up Bottling Company has taken up extending their brand from not just a beverage bottling company that they have always been known to be, to something entirely outside beverage. The FMCG company, as a result of the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2019, became one of the leading hand sanitizer manufacturers in Nigeria when they set out to launch the popular 2Sure Hand Sanitizer in April 2020. The hand sanitizer brand has been made popular and memorable to many as a result of their mass marketing campaign alongside huge demand and affordability at the time, which was later increased. The sizes of the 2Sure Hand Sanitizer are 100ml, 250ml, 500ml, and 4.5 liters, among which the 500ml is the most popular. It therefore would not be too much to say that they have come to stay in the minds of many, who link the name “2Sure” with sanitizing themselves from germs.
Another FMCG company that seems to have successfully extended its brand is Unilever with its Lifebuoy brand launched in 1894. Their initial product was the Lifebuoy hygienic soap brand. At the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, they introduced the Lifebuoy hand sanitizer. Unilever is one of the brands that extended its marketability when they introduced its variants of hand sanitizers most notably their Immunity Boosting hand sanitizer which comes in “Total 10 and Lemon Fresh”.
Seven-Up Bottling Company appears to be too sure of their customers’ loyalty and thinks that if they did it before, they can do it again. They have leveraged on their reputation and popularity once again and extended their brand by launching an “Original Medicated and Anti-bacterial Soap” with three variants – Original, Cool, and Herbal Moisture Plus – that according to them, kills 99.9% of germs alongside other benefits. These variants come in two sizes – 70g and 120g. Their tagline is, “Stop Germs. Live Well”. The 2Sure medicated soap has come to join the medicated and anti-bacterial soap list in Nigeria
Therefore, it is safe to say that Seven-Up bottling Company is too sureabout the relatedness of 2Sure Hand Sanitizer with consumer needs, and branched out to extending and trying their hands on 2Sure Medicated Soap. 2Sure Hand Sanitizer has guaranteed an expansion of customer base, increased sales, and an obvious profit margin. It can be concluded therefore that with 2Sure medicated soap, Seven-Up Bottling Company understands that it could be a brand that consumers can immediately identify with when it comes to brand stretching as far as killing germs is concerned. In recent months, the demand for hand sanitizers has dropped exponentially by 34% in Nigeria as compared with when the pandemic was at its peak.