Paper Boat: Weaving Childhood Memories with Drinks

This is a review of the Paper Boat Drinks, a fast growing beverage brand from Hector Beverages, a company based in Gurgaon and started by top B-Schools graduates.

The Back-Story

Being used to getting weird spam and trite emails of “guest post” and link exchange requests, I was pleasantly surprised couple of weeks back, when I got an interesting message from the representative of a company that makes drinks (and memories, as they claim) offering me a sample of their products in exchange for a review here.

I was amused by the way the message was framed and when I visited the website and their face book page, I realized the communication style was consistent throughout. Being interested, I replied in affirmation and pretty soon I got a package of seven of their drinks (250 ml pouch each). During the next week I sipped them one by one at my leisure and here’s is what I think of the product and the brand.

The Product

The Variants

Paper Boat drinks is available in eight variants – aamras, jaljeera, jamun kalakhatta, aam pana, kokum, nimbu paani, imli ka amlana and golgappe ka paani. As the names suggest aamras contains mango pulp, jaljeera has lemon and jeera, jamun kalakhatta has jamun, the purple Indian berry, aam pana has raw mango, kokum has well, kokum, imli has tamarind and golgappe ka paani has the unique concoction that goes inside the world famous golgappes.

Except for aamras and kokum, in which the basic fruit ingredient is on the higher side and thus taste almost like the real thing, other have the main ingredient in diluted form. They have made real efforts to provide customers unique drinks that go beyond simple fruit juice and are not readily available in packaged drinks format.

The Taste

When it comes to taste, all the drinks get full points from me. But if you are looking for authentic taste, you will be slightly disappointed with couple of them like jamun kalakhatta and imli ka amlana.

The Price

Rs. 30 for a 250 ml pouch is a bit on the higher side but when you consider the alternatives in the market, you may consider it worth the price. For example, none of the claimants of “real mango in bottle” like maaza or slice come even close to the aamras.

The Packaging

The premium quality packaging of the drinks, not only preserves the drinks better but would also better convince customers to pay a premium price for the drinks.

The Brand

Paper Boat’s brand proposition is as much about the drinks as about the memories the drinks evoke. Right from the brand name and name of the product variants, to the communication on it’s website and the Facebook page, there is a consistent effort to associate childhood memories with the brand. Sample these:

The Company

The company behind Paper Boat is Hector Beverages Pvt. Ltd. a beverage company started by a group of 4 Wharton, IIM and MDI alums, all of them seasoned beverage industry professionals. They call themselves, The Fantastic Four. Only time will tell, to what fantastic heights can the fantastic four take their Paper Boat. But they have already made a splash in the market with their best selling energy drink brand Tzinga, which sells more than 1.5 million packs per month.

Continue reading here: What is Umbrella Branding?

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