Marketing: Adults hit the soft stuff and double the bubble: Fizzy drink brands are becoming more specialised as the focus shifts away from children

ONCE upon a time there was Lucozade, Tizer and, for the health freaks, PLJ. Then came the mineral waters, herbal beverages, real fruit juices and the flavoured waters.

Now there are the adult soft drinks. There were 60 at the last count, allegedly adding healthy qualities to the refreshment offered by more traditional non- alcoholic beverages.

In the last five years, according to Richard Hall of Zenith International, the total market for these specialised drinks has more than doubled, from pounds 230m to pounds 545m.

Yet despite the dozens of launches, seven of the top 10 brands were around before the market took off in 1988. In Britain the strongest climber has been Lucozade.

The sector is a marketing manager's dream. It is segmented and up-market, appealing to the sophisticated adult as a positive alternative to alcohol.

A number of the newcomers are 'one-brand categories' - the soft drink counterparts of products like Bacardi. Aqua Libra, for instance, has nearly half the market for herbal drinks, and Appletise nearly two fifths of its specialist segment.

Aqua Libra comes from International Distillers and Vintners, the company behind Malibu and Bailey's Irish Cream. Callitheke, IDV's adult soft drinks division, has adopted the same marketing tactics with non-alcoholic drinks as IDV did with the alcoholic drinks.

IDV set up Callitheke - the Greek word for Good Health - six years ago. Claire Watson, marketing director, started with the brief of introducing drinks which would be natural, without any additives. But the products could not be too gimmicky. Hence the use of 'time- honoured ingredients such as bayberry bark and prickly ash bark, fresh tarragon and rich sesame seeds'.

Ms Watson and her colleagues took the idea of using meaningless but evocative names from the example of Bailey's. First was Purdey's, a sparkling multi-vitamin drink based on natural herbs and fruits, named after the inventor of an 'Elixir Vitae'.

Then came Dexter's, a sound British name suggestive of the chairman of England's cricket selectors. Dexter's is Hypotonic, which means that it is lighter than the body's own fluids (as opposed to Isotonic drinks, which means the same density, or hypertonic, which means a higher density). This allows it to pass rapidly by osmosis into the body, replacing the energy lost during exercise. Even sceptics have to admire the sheer class of hype in this sector.

A couple of years ago IDV bought Original Norfolk Punch, based on a medieval recipe. It was relaunched as 'a punch without the alcohol', emphasising its picturesque aspects. Apparently the monks who first blended it gathered herbs such as 'feverfew, fennel and camomile . . . at specific phases of the moon'.

But IDV's real star is Aqua Libra. Literally meaning 'balanced water', it is designed to offset too much acid in the diet. Ingredients include 'pure fruit juices, vegetable aromatic extracts, aqueous infusions of sunflower and sesame seeds, fresh tarragon and Siberian ginseng'.

Not satisfied with a dominant market share - Aqua Libra's 48 per cent is worth pounds 12m, and Purdey's, Dexter's and Original Norfolk Punch share another fifth - IDV has bought the UK rights to Clearly Canadian.

But IDV is likely to have more trouble creating world- wide soft drink brands than it did with previous, alcoholic successes such as Bailey's. A number of drinks have a head start, notably Gatorade, which used to be available in the United States only on prescription. That super-healthy image could prove very hard to beat.

The Zenith Guide to Sports Drinks in Europe is available from Zenith International, pounds 900.

(Photograph omitted)