Dad’s, the retro soft-drink manufacturer and distributer, has launched two new flavors into the Canadian market in an attempt to lure the young and old to the old-fashioned charms of its products.

Dad’s Old Fashioned Orange Kist and Nugrape products rolled off the bottling line two weeks ago and are in distribution now.

The new flavors join Dad’s Old Fashioned Root Beer, reintroduced in Canada in 1993, Cream Soda and Cherry Cola, launched the year after, and Honey Lemonade and Diet Root Beer, launched last year.

‘We’re bringing back some tried and trusted names in the soft drink world,’ says Chris Pfeifer, marketing manager of domestic brands at the Perrier Group, a Toronto-based company which markets the Dad’s brand in Ontario, Quebec and the Atlantic provinces.

In Western Canada, the product is handled by Bacchus Group, which has offices in Calgary and Vancouver.

‘Previously we focussed on the Dad’s Root Beer, because that was the premier brand. Now we want to focus on the line as a whole.’ says Pfeifer.

Canada Dry carried Dad’s products until the mid 1970s, when the brand was retired.

Perrier Group bought the rights to the name and reintroduced it to the Canadian market about three years ago.

‘There are people who remember the brand from 15 and thirty years ago, and remember its taste. Now those people have children,’ says Pfeifer.

‘It’s a nice young/old demographic.’

The soft drink market, dominated as it is by Coke, Pepsi, and the private labels, might seem impenetrable, but Pfeifer says there are consumers out there who are increasingly attracted to old fashioned products and the values associated with them.

Pfeifer likens the niche soft drink market to the microbrewery beer market. While Labatt and Molson control the vast majority of the market, there is still room for smaller labels to attract consumers interested in less mainstream products.

‘People are interested in a more carefully produced high-end product. The same thing is happening in the soft drink industry,’ says Pfeifer.

‘Now you’re starting to see a number of ‘micro-brewed’ soft drinks coming to the market. You could call them premium soft drinks,’ he says.

Dad’s sells in stores for $1.29-$1.50 for a 355 ml glass bottle, compared to Coke and Pepsi products which tend to vary in price and sell for about 99 cents for a 600 ml plastic bottle.

Dad’s is not available in cans in order to maintain its premium image and niche market status.

‘We couldn’t compete in the regular market even if we wanted to,’ explains Pfeifer, adding the product’s pricing and packaging gives the impression of being in a premium category.

No advertising has been produced for the new products, although some might be done if response to the product is positive. Magazine print advertising developed by Toronto-based Michael & Company has been used in the past.

Pfeifer says, for now, he will concentrate on point-of-purchase material, ‘with a retro feel,’ including rough wooden cases, tin signs, and t-shirts.

‘The history of the brand is rich, and the creative work will play on that,’ says Pfeifer.

The original Dad’s Root Beer company was started in 1937 in Chicago.

It grew to produce a number of different products including cream soda, cherry cola, and lemonade.

The name ‘Dad’s’ comes from the idea that it was traditional for fathers to make soft drinks from seltzer.

The founders of the company, sitting around the offices of the headquarters, heard a young boy calling for his father and were struck by the appropriateness of Dad as a name.

Pfeifer says the Dad’s brand in the u.s. has grown over 100 per cent in the last five years.

Other premium soft drink brands in Canada include Seaman’s, bottled in PEI, Stewart’s, a Denver, Colorado-based brand popular in Western Canada, and i.b.c., from i.b.c. brands of Dallas, Texas.

Neither of the u.s. companies bottle their products in Canada as Dad’s Old Fashioned does.

Pfeifer sees the presence of these companies less as competition than as helpers in the cause of growing the category.

‘The more [companies] you have in the category the more attention you’re going to attract…but there is competition in that we’re fighting for a very, very small piece of the overall bottled drink category.’

According to A.C. Nielsen, flavored soft drinks (pop) was the largest selling grocery category in Canada last year with sales of $1.48 billion.

No figures on premium soft drink sales are available.