Summary
Coca-Cola is a global company for soft drinks that sells its products to over 200 countries. All their branches have similar marketing strategies to meet the company’s goals. Coca-Cola engages in proper market analysis before engaging in the best marketing strategy. It also uses gender segmentation to reach its target audience (Nsomba, 2021). For instance, Coca-Cola light is liked by females, while the thumbs-up is popular among males. Coca-Cola also uses geographical segmentation, whereby some regions, such as Asia, like sweeter drinks hence the need to advertise sweet, healthy drinks in the region.
Product Offerings/Lines
Coca-Cola operates on multiple local channels that brand and bottle its merchandise to the final consumers. The company’s product offerings include:
- Aquarius.
- Dasani Water.
- Ayataka green tea.
- Del Valle juices and nectar.
- AdeS soy-based beverages.
- Fairlife.
- Chivita.
- Fanta.
- Ciel water.
- Fresca.
- Fuze Tea.
- Honest Tea.
- Costa Coffee.
- ILOHAS.
- Georgia coffee.
- Innocent smoothies and juices.
- Gold Peak teas and coffees.
- Simply juices.
- Minute Maid juices.
- Sprite.
- Schweppes.
- Topo Chico.
- Smartwater.
- Vitamin water.
The company is focused on transforming its product lines by reducing the amount of sugar in its drinks to create innovative ideas and attract the needs of its customers.
Core Products
Coca-Cola Company’s core products include Coca-Cola, Sprite, Coca-Cola plus coffee, Coca-Cola no sugar, Coca-Cola energy, PowerAde, Stoney, Fanta, and Sprite. The company started with Coca-Cola as its main product, then added others as its operation grew (Nsomba, 2021). The company has grown over time to accommodate customers with various conditions such as diabetes and high blood pressure by providing diet-related products such as the Coke-zero that contain no sugar.
Distribution Method/Strategy
Over 1.9 billion Coca-Cola products are sold daily around the globe. The company operates on a localized scale whenever they do business. Coca-Cola’s main company is affiliated with more than 250 bottling companies globally. They use their partners to ensure their products are supplied with ease in various regions. The company has managerial departments that are independent in controlling their local operations (Ayoob, 2018). Their products are sold to wholesalers, retailers, restaurants, petrol stations, and automated teller machines. Each country has its unique way of supplying company products to its remotest places. The Coca-Cola Company ensures they employ enough tactics to use motorbikes and bicycles to reach interior places in developing countries. In other countries, they use vehicles and other distribution vans.
Target Audience
The vast product line that the company comes up with aims at reaching everyone. Coca-Cola develops new marketing strategies each time they come up with a new product. The company addresses everyone with care, although statistically, their main consumers fall between 12-35 years (Ayoob, 2018). The company has partnered with various restaurants such as McDonald’s, to reach out to as many people as possible. However, the core target audience is the young generation and not gender-based marketing (Ayoob, 2018). When the young generation grows up knowing the company as their ultimate soft drink maker, they are prone to market it to the younger generation. The company has made diet drinks to enable people with conditions or on a diet to consume their products without getting worried about their health.
Main Competitors
The biggest Coca-Cola Company competitor is Pepsi because it has a large product portfolio. However, Pepsi merged with Frito Lay in 1965 to see organic growth. Despite its limited product portfolio, Red Bull has also emerged as a strong competitor because it sells its products to over 170 countries and focuses on core markets such as the USA and Western Europe. In 2017, Red Bull sold over 6.3 billion cans in five major markets (Turkey, India, United Kingdom, Netherlands, and Northern Europe) (Sanclemente-Téllez, 2017). Other Coca-Cola competitors include Dr. Pepper Snapple, Nestle, and Parle.
Geographic Reach
Since the Coca-Cola Company targets everyone thirsty, it has tried its best to cover major parts of the world. Coca-Cola divides the demographic segmentation into gender, family life cycle, religion, race, social class, and educational background. The company is present in Europe, North America, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, and the Asia Pacific. The company reaches about 370 million consumers in North America, 650 million consumers in Latin America, 2.8 billion consumers in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and over 4 billion consumers in the Asia Pacific.
Advertising & Promotion Strategy (IMC)
Coca-Cola in Mandarin means “delicious happiness,” and Coke is associated with happiness. Engulfing people’s association of happiness makes various nationals to affiliate themselves with the company. The company uses the product strategy by providing many products to make potential customers the urge to taste them. The company has a classic bottle that is part of the promotion strategy (Sanclemente-Téllez, 2017). The pricing strategy is an efficient way to ensure the company retains old customers while attracting new ones. In the recent past, the company introduced personalized bottles whereby clients get their initials written on their drinks.
Pricing Method & Strategy
Coca-Cola Company has tried to ensure its pricing stagnates globally and it beats its competitors’ rates. The company has a price skimming method where they set high prices when the product is still new, and then they lower it once competitors enter the market (Xiao & Zhang, 2020). At times, the company ensures that its products achieve market penetration by changing them to a lower price than other products and constantly raising it to an optimum price once it has gained popularity.
Positioning Strategy
The company used slogans that people highly appreciate because they need a happy life. First, the company used “Open Happiness” as its slogan until 2016, when it changed it to “Taste the Feeling.” The hitherto conveyed a message of finding fun and being fresh in life once someone consumes their drink (Xiao & Zhang, 2020). The positioning strategy is open-ended because people from all walks of life can find solace in Coca-Cola products.
Value Proposition
The company’s value proposition is “The Coke Side of Life,” representing the open happiness that a customer gets when they consume their products. The value proposition explains why Coca-Cola products are enjoyable, provide comfort, and improve the social environment once their products are consumed (Xiao & Zhang, 2020). It also emphasizes the need for originality to enable the company to get more customers. Value proposition improves company marketing tactics, hence making it popular on a global scale.
Differentiation Strategy
The Coca-Cola Company’s differential strategy is the development of a soft drink and service delivery to improve the attributes and unique features of its products. The differential strategy enables the company to offer special pricing for its products. For instance, when an individual buys minerals, it will cost them less funds than buying vitamin water. Some of their diet products with less sugar cost more than other products. The Coca-Cola Company differentiates its products through efficient pricing strategies.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Coca-Cola has relationship-building strategies with its customers that are long-lasting and synthetically committed. The services and products provided by the company include fridges to cool their products while on sale. The retailers are given containers in developing countries and remote places, and the company provides motorcycles to penetrate rough slim terrains (Xiao & Zhang, 2020). The cross-functional process provides customers with platforms in social media and establishes a synchronized relationship with customers who will give referrals to their friends to taste their products.
References
Ayoob, N. (2018). Liquidity risk, macroeconomics variables, and firm performances: A study of the Coca-Cola Company. SSRN Electronic Journal.
Nsomba, G. (2021). The Coca-Cola Company/Coca-Cola Beverages Africa Merger: Lessons for Robust Regional Competition Enforcement. The Antitrust Bulletin, 0003603X2110454.
Sanclemente-Téllez, J. (2017). Marketing and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Moving between broadening the concept of marketing and social factors as a marketing strategy. Spanish Journal of Marketing – ESIC, 21, 4-25.
Xiao, Z., & Zhang, J. (2020). The analysis of the effectiveness of cost control strategy on the profitability of Coca-Cola Company from the year 2015 to 2017. Management, 8(3), 232-239.