Clearly Canadian has experienced the heights of success and the depths of bankruptcy. Now, a little under a decade from when it was resurrected after going offline, the Toronto-based sweetened sparkling water brand is figuring out how to strike the right balance between 1990s nostalgia and the modern, better-for-you beverage business.
Last month, Clearly Canadian announced a new line of 6-pack SleekCans for both its Original (24 grams of sugar per 12 oz. can) and Zero Sugar (sweetened with stevia) lines, which feature its top selling flavors Mountain Blackberry, Wild Cherry and Orchard Peach. The cans are an addition to the nearly 40-year-old brand’s signature bottle line – a bulb-shaped glass package that helps give the brand a distinctive presence on shelf – and are priced at $7.99 per multipack – nearly 50% less than the glass line.
It’s further modernization for a legacy company that came back from the dead, having rebuilt its business from scratch around eight years ago.
“As we look at becoming a more contemporary and new age beverage play once again, now that we’re in the 2020s having cans is definitely essential,” said VP of marketing Casey Howe. “When you look at total beverage consumption, 90% of the category is in either can or PET format, and we’re against plastic.”
Embracing the present – while remembering the failings (and successes) of the past – is a pillar of Clearly Canadian’s current strategy, and cans are just one example of how that approach is playing out in the market.
The Dream of the 90s
Founded in 1987, Clearly Canadian became an international name in the 90s, when it enjoyed public perception as a “cleaner” alternative to soda; Howe estimates it surpassed $280 million in sales at its height. With a clear liquid and its bulbous bottles, the brand married the aesthetics of premium spring water with the taste and texture of soft drinks, rising to prominence alongside a cohort of other “new age” beverages of the decade like Jones Soda and AriZona.
While Clearly Canadian built its business on a loyal consumer base of Gen Xers, things got rocky around the turn of the millennium and Howe admits that the old leadership made a number of mistakes.
Beyond an early hiccup with the ill-fated launch of boba-precursor Orbitz (which critics panned as like drinking a lava lamp) the company was dealt critical damage in the 2000s when it transitioned out of DSD distribution and dropped the glass bottle for cheaper plastic packaging; many consumers also came to realize the product was almost as sugar-laden as its competition. As the business struggled to regain momentum, money was poorly spent – in 2007, leadership made the head-scratching decision to acquire an organic baby food brand in effort to become a platform CPG business.
By 2010, Clearly Canadian was out of production and the company appeared to be gone for good. But in 2013, a new ownership group acquired the brand and via crowdfunding campaigns was able to finance a relaunch, with a proper return to retail in Canada in 2017, Howe said.
Mounting a Relaunch
Clearly Canadian today is still nowhere near the heights it achieved in the 90s, but the brand certainly looks to be in a much better position than it was 15 years ago. Circana reports that U.S. Multi-Outlet retail dollar sales of its flavored sparkling waters were up 39.4%, to over $65.8 million, in the 52-week period ending July 14. While the company doesn’t release its full financials, Howe said total year-over-year growth across all revenue streams is closer to 55%.
The brand is now in around 33,600 doors across North America, including Loblaws, Sobeys, and Shoppers Drug Marts in Canada. In the U.S. it has all Kroger and Ahold-Delhaize banners, Albertsons/Safeway, Publix, H-E-B and Meijer stores.
Its focus has long been on conventional grocery, with around 69% ACV in the channel, Howe said, but Clearly is now also making headway into the club, mass and convenience channels in the U.S. as well, expanding with Target, Walmart, Sam’s Club, Costco and Cumberland Farms this year.
With the wide expansion, Clearly’s team is still relatively small: 25 full time employees, 11 of which are in sales. The company now works with 87 distributors in the U.S., as well as UNFI and KeHE and direct shipping capabilities.
“When we relaunched the brand, we always wanted to service the customer the way that they wanted to be serviced, whether it was through a wholesaler, through a distributor partner that they had, or direct,” he said. “As we grow and evolve, we’re really focused more on the distributor side to get better activation in-store.”
Howe noted that a key goal this year has been to improve its merchandising and secure more in-store displays, which he said can create triple-digit lift in same-store sales even at regular pricing.
Max Baumann, founder and CEO of CPG sales agency Basemakers – which works with the brand – suggested part of Clearly Canadian’s newfound success has been thanks to consumer trends rejecting alternative and artificial sweeteners and favoring lower calorie, “real” beverages.
Basemakers services Clearly Canadian in a number of key retail chains, including H-E-B, Publix and Jewel-Osco stores, and Baumann said that in his experience the brand does appear to be resonating most with Gen X and Millennial consumers who likely remember the brand from its original run. As well, he said the company has benefitted from being diligent around fill rates and staying in stock, as well as offering a lower price point than other premium competitors.
“In an era of inflation, they’re still relatively priced to move,” Baumann said. “They’re not priced at a value price, but there’s a lot of brands that we’re seeing that are creeping up above that $2 area repeatedly. Seeing where they’re at, I think they’re in a nice sweet spot where it’s an affordable luxury.”
Building Beyond Nostalgia
There’s been many attempts over the years to relaunch iconic 80s and 90s brands, from Original New York Seltzer to several iterations of Slice, but largely these relaunches have fizzled out. Clearly Canadian, however, appears to have maintained its cult following – at least enough to mount the relaunch. Now, the company wants to do more to reach Gen Z and other consumers who are meeting the brand for the first time.
While maintaining the classic branding has been important, Howe said the company has turned to innovation to further bring Clearly Canadian from the 1990s into the 2020s. Besides cans (and an environmental message in its marketing), other post-revival innovations have included Zero Sugar and the Sparkling Essence line, which contains no sweeteners and is more akin to a typical flavored sparkling water such as Polar or Bubly.
But Clearly has set soda as its primary target. Howe said around 80% of its volume sales come from soda drinkers seeking a better-for-you option. While CSDs have experienced a lift from Zero Sugar lines and functional brands like Poppi and Olipop, Clearly Canadian is positioning itself like a “unicorn,” Howe suggested, that can straddle the line between sparkling water and soda.
“We just did some research with soda consumers, and the guilt and shame that they have around drinking sodas is really interesting,” he said. “They drink it, but they’re sort of hooked on it. They actually refer to it almost as a drug in their life, and they’re trying to get off it, but they haven’t been able to find anything else that has the taste that they’re looking for.”
Looking ahead, Howe said the company is developing a new marketing campaign for the new year, and continuing to strike a balance between nostalgia and recruiting younger consumers remains the goal. While it features some of its classic 1990s commercials on its website for those who helped revive the brand through crowdsourcing campaigns, staying fresh on social media is also at the top of mind.
“We’re being very strategic and very true to the brand,” he said. “We want to build Clearly Canadian the right way, and really learn from the history book of what happened in the past and what worked and didn’t work. We never want to be in an instance where this brand goes away again and disappoints our fans.”