Tropicana's Trop50 Adds Tea to Fruit Juice Line

Tropicana's low-cal Trop50 brand has been on a roll lately, and the company is trying to extend this hot sub-brand by invading another segment of the beverage market instead of sticking with juices.

Trop50 Juice with Tea is a fruit-juice and tea mix with "50% less sugar and calories" than regular juice, combining fruit juices with white and green teas, in three flavors. Additionally, Tropicana is introducing a new variety of "regular" Trop50, Red Orange, which provides a full day's supply of vitamin C, and a dose of potassium to boot.

PepsiCo is supporting Trop50 with new TV spots that extend its "Girlfriends" TV campaign starring Jane Krakowski that debuted in Canada.

The 30 Rock star continues in the basic mode of her earlier ads for Trop50, holding forth about "life, love and looking good," as PepsiCo puts it. In one spot, at top, she wakes her neighbors in Manhattan with an earful of "I'm Walking on Sunshine," after drinking some of the new Red Orange flavor variety. In another, she daydreams about a seductive dance experience but then decides she'd rather have Trop50 Juice with Tea instead.

Combining stevia-sweetened Trop50 with tea seems like a savvy move. because ready-to-drink cold teas are one of the few beverage categories that have been growing robustly lately, like Trop50. Overall growth of the category last year was 4 percent, according to Beverage Digest, about in line with increases enjoyed by bottled water and juice drinks.

But some of the most dynamic tea entrants notched much faster growth, such as Arizona's Arnold Palmer variety of half-lemonade, half-iced-tea drinks, and Coca-Cola's refrigerated Gold Peak brand.

Those fastest-growing new tea brands are in the arena where Trop50 wants to play. As a hit juice brand in its own right, the chances seem good.