Introduction
Coca-Cola is one of the most successful companies in the world. Its products are sold in more than 200 countries around the world. Outside of the United States, it generates 80% of its income. They have great brand recognition worldwide (Mevada, 2020). According to the survey, about 94% of people worldwide are familiar with the red and white Coca-Cola logos (Mevada, 2020).
Coca-Cola’s success started in 1886 in Atlanta, Georgia, when the company was founded. (Mevada, 2020). The company sold 1.9 billion servings daily, but historical data shows it sold only nine dishes daily for 133 years (Mevada, 2020). Coca-Cola’s unique marketing plan gives it global exposure through a holistic and integrated market strategy and digital promotion.
Marketing Strategy: The Four Ps
Like many other companies, Coca-Cola focuses its marketing approach on the four Ps: products, promotions, prices, and places. Coca-Cola uses a mixed marketing approach and operates independently in all countries where it does business. The bottling companies retain control of the brand, establish the business policy, and implement it. Most local stores handle Coca-Cola distribution and do not operate any bottling companies.
Coca-Cola concentrates on various promotional and marketing techniques because of the fierce competition in the industry. They focus mostly on aggressive marketing. Statistics show that Coca-Cola invested $4 million in brand marketing in 2016 and $4 million in 2018 (Mevada, 2020). It makes use of both domestic and foreign platforms to advertise its brand.
Product Range and Pricing Strategy
There are several different items made by Coca-Cola that are soft drinks. These items are sold worldwide, and the marketing mix may be used to analyze the product strategy. The items listed below include Sprite, Fanta, Coca-Cola, Diet Coke, Light, Coca-Cola Life, PowerAde Zero, and others (Mevada, 2020). These goods come in a variety of sizes and packaging. They have a sizable market share and provide astronomical profits for the business. For around 73 years, Coca-Cola’s price hasbarely changed (Mevada, 2020).
The market is becoming more competitive with companies like Pepsi, Coca-Cola’s main rival. As a result, the corporation must adapt its pricing approach. If a firm adopts this technique, customers begin to question the quality of the product, which drastically reduces the value if the company raises its price excessively, and customers migrate to the alternative.
Distribution and Supply Chain Network
Coca-Cola is a multinational corporation with a vast distribution network; its goods are marketed in more than two hundred nations. Their six operational regions are Latin America, Africa, Europe, the Pacific, Eurasia, and North America (Mevada, 2020). The business relies on its distributors and bottling partners for packing and distribution.
The production, packaging, and delivery to the agents, as well as the road transportation to the stockists, distributors, retailers, and ultimately the final consumer, are all the responsibility of the bottling partners. It is given every day through this route. Coca-Cola products are sold worldwide and may be found in practically all retail stores, supermarkets, grocery stores, and other establishments. Coca-Cola’s vast reverse supply chain network collects used glass bottles and repurposes them to conserve resources and cut costs.
Holistic Marketing Approach
A unifying purpose is given to operations and those associated with the firm under holistic marketing, which views the organization and its parts as a single entity. A company is quite similar to a human body in that it contains many different parts, and it can only function effectively when all of those parts come together to work toward the same goal. The holistic marketing theory, which contends that a wide, interrelated perspective is essential to getting the greatest performance, supports this correlation (Anik & Habiba, 2020). When creating and implementing strategic campaigns, the holistic marketing strategy considers the concerns of consumers, businesses, employees, suppliers, and society.
Holistic marketing has gained popularity due to increased industry participation and competitiveness. Companies understand that they may distinguish themselves with a strategic marketing plan while fostering unity throughout the company’s divisions. This strategy combines relationship marketing, societal marketing, internal marketing, and integrated marketing.
Integrated Marketing for a Consistent Brand Experience
Integrated marketing aims to give customers a unified and consistent experience that will encourage them to interact with the business. To achieve this, all interactions, including advertising, product promotion, direct marketing, public relations, and digital media, are planned and coordinated (Anik & Habiba, 2020). It ensures they all work as a cohesive whole and supports a strong and clear corporate identity. The company’s primary goal is to create value for all its stakeholders by offering a wide range of items, using proper pricing methods, clever placement techniques, and conducting successful advertising campaigns.
Internal Marketing and Employee Engagement
Coca-Cola attempts to satisfy its internal customers, including the workers and employees, as well as its external consumers. Coca-Cola advertises its goods and cultivates a positive image in the eyes of its internal clients so that these clients might subsequently extend it to the exterior clients. Only when the business and its internal clients share the same beliefs and practices can they successfully attract and cater to their external clients.
For instance, the business ensured its staff were on board with the “Share a Coke” campaign when it first began (Anik & Habiba, 2020). Employees in Romania who participated in the campaign received a Coca-Cola can with the names of their coworkers scrawled on it as a present (Anik & Habiba, 2020). As a result, coworkers with similar names can enter the lounge zone and have a good time. In other areas, many employees are given Coca-Cola bottles and cans with their names uniquely personalized.
Advertising Media and Techniques
Coca-Cola advertises through newspapers, one of the most popular forms of media advertising. The Coca-Cola Company was one of the first companies to play a leading role in media advertising for more than a century. Coca-Cola is regularly advertised in magazines around the world. Publications are selected for readability based on the company’s intended customer category. To maximize the positive impact of marketing efforts, these ads often occupy a page of a magazine, a page-turner, oranother medium where Coca-Cola commercials can be found in various formats (Anik & Habiba, 2020). Online promotion of brands is primarily done on thousands of websites worldwide using banners, pop-up ads, onsite sponsorships, and other forms of online advertising.
Coca-Cola is also advertised in movies, which is done in two ways. First, Coca-Cola video adverts are presented in theaters before the start of the film (Anik & Habiba, 2020). Second, Coca-Cola promotes itself through product placement in motion pictures, where the beverage is positioned throughout the picture and is drunk by the main character to maximize the value of the placement (Anik & Habiba, 2020). The standard Coca-Cola radio ad is only a few seconds long, yet it is thought to successfully raise customer brand awareness and loyalty.
Additionally, billboards and posters are often utilized as a crucial component of media advertising at Coca-Cola. Billboards are frequently installed worldwide on highways, urban areas, and rural locations (Anik & Habiba, 2020). On the other hand, posters are typically put up at businesses, restaurants, and public transportation.
Companies can use this network to provide customers and partners with new types of value that are unimaginable now. This giant company targets its advertising campaigns to customers, distributors, bottlers, and retailers, helping billboards and refrigerators advertise and build branding. Coca-Cola has linked its product to everything necessary to customers and touches their perception. The brand uses this strategy to count on its customers to support the company by sharing their passion for the brand.
Integrated Global Campaigns and Consumer Engagement
The business employs a marketing strategy known as an integrated marketing campaign, in which it chooses several media outlets and distributes a unified message worldwide. This strategy attracts a sizable audience and encourages active participation. People enjoy being a part of the throng, and international marketing efforts help them to feel like they are. In order to improve sales during a severe economic slump, Coca-Cola developed a global campaign with the subject “Open Happiness” back in 2009 (Amin, 2022).
Coca-Cola also moved its advertising campaign outside and constructed happy machines with covert cameras to record in-the-moment events. Within six months, “Open Happiness” attracted attention on a global scale, and Coca-Cola saw a 17% increase in sales (Amin, 2022). After American Idol, the business began airing native-language advertisements worldwide (Amin, 2022). Coca-Cola preserved music as a unifying element to convey a single message to the masses.
Brand Identity and Competitive Advantage
Coca-Cola has a distinct brand identity and a distinct flavor composition in its beverages. These two main characteristics distinguish it from its competitors. The fundamentals behind this successful marketing strategy are to provide consumers with more choices and enable them to make more informed decisions about the types of products they want. It also has certain company-specific capabilities that competitors have yet to imitate, such as a network of licensed bottlers and secret recipe content and composition (Amin, 2022).
Brands are often identified by their packaging, colors, and logos. By maintaining consistency in its branding, Coca-Cola has distinguished itself. Early on, Coca-Cola debuted and continued to use contour-shaped bottles. It practically qualifies as the company’s trademark at this point. If they put their bottle in a group of 10 others, everyone can quickly identify it (Amin, 2022). It can enhance the business’s reputation by having a strong brand identity. Coca-Cola has maintained its classic bottle design, script logo, and red hue for years, and there are no signs that this will alter anytime soon. It is one of the main causes behind the growing popularity of Coca-Cola worldwide.
Conclusion
Overall, Coca-Cola is a global brand that people have been consuming for many years. The foundation they have built through more than a century of arduous labor is what has allowed them to succeed today. Furthermore, their success results from consistent work on marketing initiatives, sales economics, and efficient supply chain management. However, their marketing technique is the primary selling point of their goods.
Since the beginning, they have used some of the best marketing strategies that serve as examples of how the market operates. They have also effectively taken marketing and promotion in a new direction and established a bar that is now seldom ever exceeded. Coca-Cola was brought about by the marketing excellence of today.
References
Amin, Z. (2022). Coca-Cola’s 9 marketing strategies to achieve global success. Squeeze Growth. Web.
Anik, Khairul & Habiba, Warda. (2020). Marketing management practice of Coca-Cola. ResearchGate.
Mevada, N. (2020). Marketing strategy of Coca cola. Brainito. Web.