On Friday, the company launched ‘More fizz Pepsi’ in Nepal in Kathmandu as part of its product diversification strategy. The Post caught up with Goyal to talk about Pepsi’s new product launch and future market strategies. Excerpts:

What is the objective behind your latest product launch? Are there any immediate plans to launch other products?

Nepal is a very strategic market for us. We have very strong brands in this market. Pepsi is a loved brand in Nepal. The reason behind the launch of ‘More fizz Pepsi’ is that we keep hearing from the consumers about their need gaps. When we went to the market, we understood that the biggest need for this market, the consumer and youth is the extra kick of refreshment. That’s why the conceptualisation of the product started happening.

How do you assess the Nepali market?

It’s a huge potential market. There is a large population of youth over here and Pepsi is a brand that co-creates the culture along with the youth of this country. And it goes very well with our mission statement. We launched a brand called ‘Sting’ eight months back. This energy drink was launched to meet the requirements of the youth population here.

How has your company grown in the last five years?

Our growths are very strong and ahead of the market because of the mix of the brands that we have that cater to the larger consumer segments. It is one of the fastest-growing brands in Nepal.

We as a company believe in how the consumer is our focus and bring products according to their needs. Today’s launch was the testimony to that.

Pepsi does not seem that much aggressive in terms of marketing compared to other similar beverage products in the market, why?

We are very aggressive and it is more than evident from the steps that we are taking in the last so many years. We have powerhouse brands like Mountain Dew, More fizz Pepsi and Sting. This is the testimony itself to say that we are really aggressive and we are really looking at this market from the strategic point of view. We believe Pepsico has huge potential in this market. When we do a product launch and a proposition like More Fizz and More Swag, we are going to invest heavily in building that proposition because we clearly see very strong consumer traction happening over there. We will be investing in mainline communication. We see Nepal going digital so we will be investing in digital advertisements. We are going to open all the channels driving the growth of any of our brands, more for Pepsi right now.