The company borrowed a vodka brand for its water

As Kommersant has learned, Happyland, Russia's largest producer of low-alcohol cocktails, is entering the soft drink market: the company has begun test sales of SKYY Light drinking water. But in order to make money on the growing market (Russians still drink no more than 20-22 liters of bottled water per person per year, and the French - 120 liters), Happyland will have to prove that its water does not advertise American SKYY vodka.

Representatives of two alcohol companies that bottle weak alcohol told Kommersant that the Happyland company plans to produce soft drinks and is launching drinking water under the SKYY Light brand. The head of the Happyland press service, Leonid Pirogov, confirmed that test sales of the new brand are currently underway in “several dozen Moscow stores.” “The project is new for the company,” and its details will be known “closer to the end of the year,” he added.

Vice President for Marketing and Foreign Economic Affairs of Happyland Elena Gerasimovskaya clarified that the company does not even have a final decision on entering the drinking water segment; it will be made after the results of test sales become known. But the top manager of one of the Moscow printing houses knows that Happyland has already placed an order for SKYY Light water labels at the Limaton printing house. Its representatives said that the order involves printing 250 thousand labels for 1.5 liter PET bottles and 450 thousand labels for 0.5 liter bottles.

Happyland's share of the Russian market of low-alcohol drinks in 2007, according to Business Analytics (BA), amounted to 14.8% by value (another 12.5% of the market is occupied by IBB Ltd, whose products are produced and promoted by Happyland "). Owns a plant in the Tver region with a capacity of about 45 million decaliters per year. In 2007, together with the Swiss equipment seller Arogla, he created a joint venture, United Bottling Group, engaged in bottling soft drinks (including for PepsiCo and Ahmad) and warehouse development. The main brands are Jaguar, Red Devil, Casanova. The main owner is Olga Kurbatova.

Marketing director of the company "Visma" (water "Arkhyz") Natalya Selezneva believes that, despite the presence of strong transnational companies (according to BA, in the first half of this year the Coca-Cola company controlled 16.6% of the market of the 30 largest cities in value expression, PepsiCo - 14.9%), the drinking water market is attractive for new players: consumption of bottled drinking water in Russia this year will be 20-22 liters per capita, the same figure in France - 120 liters, in Italy - 110 -115 l. “The main investments of new players go to building logistics, but taking into account the fact that the distribution channels for low-alcohol drinks and drinking water coincide, the task of Happyland is significantly simplified,” she believes.

The SKYY brand can hardly be considered an invented “Happyland” (the company does not comment on its origin) - it coincides with the brand of a popular super-premium American vodka. According to Rospatent, the American company SKYY Spirits registered the SKYY Vodka trademark back in 1999 for the 33rd class of goods, including vodka; in 2007, registration was extended for ten years. In total, in 2007, according to Impact magazine, 2.9 million 9-liter cases of SKYY vodka were sold. The average price of a 0.75 liter bottle in the USA is $20. This is approximately the same amount as Stolichnaya vodka is sold (3 million cases), and not much less than the sales volume of Gray Goose vodka (3.6 million cases). According to BA, in Russia SKYY vodka occupies “thousandths of a percent”.

Happyland will be able to use the brand if the design of the brand and the design of the water do not coincide with the appearance of SKYY vodka. Otherwise, according to the head of the department for control and supervision of compliance with advertising legislation of the Federal Antimonopoly Service, Sergei Puzyrevsky, advertising of this water will be subject to the same requirements as advertising of alcohol.

The company does not explain why Happyland needed a brand similar to vodka. Samvel Avetisyan, general director of the Archidea branding agency, believes that “this does not look like parasitic marketing - the popularity of SKYY vodka in Russia is close to zero.” And for SKYY Spirits, the economic feasibility of bottling vodka in Russia or issuing licenses to Russian companies is negligible, argues Dmitry Dobrov, head of the external relations department of the Federal State Unitary Enterprise Rosspirtprom. SKYY Spirits could not be reached for comment on Friday.

Anna Kommersant-Ryabova

"Happyland" made vodka lighter