Introduction
In a world that is increasingly becoming global, where each company has a touch in every continent, building a name is one objective that is widely pursued for quite some time now. With advanced technology, advertisement has evolved over the years to be able to capture the whole the world in a way that is intriguing to the customers.
It is only those customers who create an impression of how wonderful a product looks like, they will have an unstoppable desire to posses it. Creation of an impression, building awareness and constant reminders to customer is essentially enabled through video adverts.
This paper attempts to examine the impact of McDonald’s Corporation and Coca-Cola companies’ advertisements to its Russian consumers. The extensive examination intensively analyses the number and variations of the English-American words introduced to Russian consumers through the video advertisement over the years.
It is interesting to realize how video commercial advertising, while incorporating English-American words to it, has had such an impact to the prosperity of McDonald’s in building and attracting more consumers and more significantly its impact to Russian culture.
Coke has been in operation for a long time, and throughout this period, from as early as 1886, it has been very prosperous in its operations, and market share acquisition. A curious pharmacist discovered it on one evening. He mixed some few chemicals, took the mixture to his friend’s chemist where it was mixed further with carbonated water, and some few customers took samples.
Upon tasting the mixture, they were delighted with the new creation, there and then, they pontificated it as a superior and novel drink that had not been seen before (Associated Press 2). A closely similar story is what McDonald’s has been. This paper describes these two companies with the view of analyzing the different aspects of their operation and discusses unique cultures that they have that make them eccentric in their respective niche markets.
Five cents a glass is the price that was charged for the drink, which was sold in a chemist. Pemberton, who was the founder’s friend bookkeeper named the drink coca – cola that is how the drink is known ever since then. It received relatively slower market when it introduced it, because Pemberton sold only glasses.
Through the period of 1888-1891, businessperson Assa Griggs Candler acquired the rights to produce the drink for a total of $2,300 (Pendergrast 47). This made him the first president for the company on record to develop the company’s vision. Candler, characterized as a naturally born salesperson, identified the large market of the thirsty market and oversaw his drink quenching their thirst.
He transformed Coca-Cola from a mere drink to a fully-grown company. By 1985, Candler had already established a syrup firm in Chicago, Dallas and Los Angeles. The drink was first packed into bottles by Mississippi businessperson Joseph Beidenharn.
He sent 12 Samples to Candler who embraced the idea with enthusiasm. This dream was not realized until 1899 when two lawyers, acquired the full rights to produce the beverage for only one dollar per bottle (BBC News 2).
The Coca-Cola Company exists to provided refreshment, joy and quenching of thirst to its customers. It functions under a company called Coca-Cola Hellenic in the Russian region. The company first ventured into Russia in 2001.
Coca-Cola Hellenic, based at Moscow, has 14 bottling branches scattered all over the country. It has an employee capacity of 10,000 and indirectly supports 5-10 times its supply chain making it one of the largest non-alcoholic beverages companies in the region (Lundy 23).
The company’s notable increased operations are traced back to 2005 when the Coca-Cola Company and the Coca-Cola Hellenic acquired Multon on a 50/50 ratio. The company has gradually built a strong business in Russia owing to its diverse, international premium brand, the extensive sale and distribution chain. Russia proved to be a high potential market (Mikkelson & David 15).
Given the increasingly complexity of the market, Coca-Cola Hellenic Russia operates in; it has to adjust its business approach to meet the demand in the market. The company implemented a new strategic plan in 2006 as a way of ensuring business services offered met the consumers’ expectations.
The company is building a powerful route-to-market system and a strong partnership with its consumers to ensure that their sales in the market place are what is needed by the consumers (Munizi 36).
Consumers have different tastes and preferences considering their society and location. The Coca-Cola Company is adjusting to these tastes so that it can provide the appropriate promotional activities and beverages to suit and interlink her consumers.
The Coca-Cola’s “think locally, act locally” marketing strategy allows it to fit into the market and determine the local market demands and determine how to understand and satisfy the demands of their target consumers (Murden 53).
Coca-Cola advertisements have revolutionized the world of advertisings. Most of their advertisements are rooted in the image of a red Santa clause. The company began using the figure of Santa Clause in the year 1930 making it the first soft drink company to use that figure in the history of advertisement.
Before the thought of using Santa Clause, Coca-Cola depended on the use of elegantly dressed young women as their sales representatives to sell their beverages. “In the year, 1941, the company developed its official trademark nickname “coke”; this was followed by a series of advertisement aimed at informing the consumer that “coke” was “coca-cola”” (Michaelssssss 1).
Coca Cola’s advertisements are pervasive; his or her main goal is to ensure that everybody prefers to drink coke to any other beverage. Most of Coca Cola’s unforgettable product promotions were written by former Atlanta radio presenter Naylor during his span as a producer at McCann Advertising Agency. Most of the ancient coke advertisements featured musicians, movie personalities and sports icons (Pendergrast 34).
Cola wars happened in the 1980s when Coca-Cola and Pepsi were fighting for a larger market share. Coca-Cola ran a number of advertisements to try to combat Pepsi and ended up tarnishing the image of Pepsi. In one of Coca Cola’s advertisement, Coca-Cola compared the challenge that was posed by Pepsi to “two chimpanzees that were deciding on which tennis ball was furrier” (Pendergrast 34). Later when the war ended, Coca-Cola regained its popularity.
In 1992, the Coca-Cola Company bought Colombia pictures and started using movies to advertise their brands. This was archived through inserting images of its products in most of the movies they produced.
Coca-Cola has had two slogans since its introduction in Russia, Всегда Coca-Cola (1993-2009, which means Always Coca-Cola), and Coca-Cola идет в дом! (2010, which means it is heading to the house!).
Coca-Cola mainly uses the above lines for its advertisement and preferred using the media rather than personal encounters. One such advertisement is The Holidays are Coming that is characterized by a train of red delivery trucks covered in the name coke and decorated with lights all round. As the train moves on a snowy terrain, it lights up for people to see as they pass (Smith 32).
Coca-Cola has also designed a new way to advertise through sports. It began the spirit of sponsoring the Olympics back in 1928 Olympics, and has continued sponsoring sports from then on. The Olympics games command a very large crowd of people which is an upper hand to coke as it a way of marketing itself.
The concept behind sponsoring the Olympics was that Coca-Cola products would be on display to a very large crowd of people simultaneously which was a very good advertisement strategy for coke. Coca-Cola has also been associated with the Fifa world cup and has been one of Fifa’s biggest sponsors since 1978. It is also the main soft drink for many collegiate teams in Russia and elsewhere (Watson 56).
Coca-Cola Hellenic is one of the most successful businesses to market their products using video line advertisement. All of its advertisements have taken the market with a storm and have generated a very high response. At one point, consumers asked for the advertisement labeled, ‘The Holidays are Coming’, to be re-ran during the approach of Christmas holidays.
This proves that the company has been successful in relaying its concept to the mass public. Due to the success of Coca-Cola video advertisements, many books written in many educational institutions use it as examples in case study (Watson 100).
McDonalds Restaurants
McDonalds is a company that deals in hamburger and fast foods where it serves well to over 58 million consumers in one day (Brand 12). McDonalds sells varieties of foodstuff products that range from hamburgers and other breakfast items to lunch items and soft drinks, which altogether offer a unique taste of dessert that leaves its customers satisfied (Brand 65).
Due to the rising cases of obesity in the western countries and general concern of lack of healthy meals, the company has been forced to edit its menu and squeeze in some foodstuffs with high nutritional value health wise items such as salads and fruits. McDonald’s fast food came into existence in 1940 when two Brothers, founders of the company, opened a restaurant in San Bernardino, California.
These brothers are also responsible in bringing into existence the idea of fast food joints used in day-to-day life through a system they introduced called Spedee fast service. The Corporation first applied for U.S trademark by the identity McDonalds in 1961 with the slogan, Driver-in Restaurant Services. McDonalds filled for a logo trademark using the symbol of “M” which is overlapping.
The logo was later changed on September 6th 1962 to a single arch shaped ‘M’. The first McDonald restaurants were opened first in the United States, which was the biggest market for the company. Later, as demand for their products increased in other countries, they went ahead and opened more restaurants in Canada, Costa Rica and Japan.
Today McDonald’s are in operation in the Netherlands, Australia, El-Salvador, and Germany among others (Tuner 206). The company entered into the stock exchange in 1955 where the first company to buy the shares, Ray Kroc, bought the McDonalds Equity and subsequently the company to venture worldwide.
The McDonalds thought of it as a good thing for the company, and due to its level of prominence, it has become a topic for many public debates. Its restaurants are found in one hundred and nineteen countries with 31,000 restaurants in total in all these countries.
Most of their service ranges from counter services drive through services to indoor/outdoor service. In order to inhabit the new trends of quality coffee, the McDonalds was compelled to start McCafe as an accompaniment to McDrive.
The company earns money through investments in properties, franchise of restaurants and managing restaurants. The McDonalds Corporation who owns it directly by the McDonalds Corporation (Berger 121) manages about 15% of McDonalds.
As a renowned fast food corporation, McDonalds has frequently come under criticism for its overpriced menu. This notwithstanding, they have also met attempts of disapproval for their business practices and expansions across the globe.
In a form of counter attack, McDonalds has sought to add foods with healthier nutritional value that causes no harm to body in the long-term, to its menu. In the year 2007, McDonalds launched a promotional campaign, to market their business to the Irish, bearing the slogan “Would You like a Career with That” (Caro 1).
McDonalds advertises in many ways apart from only video advertisements. They first begin with handling the company’s publicity.
This is accomplished through several ways, for example, in April 2008 the Corporation announced that 11 of their Sheffield were operating under biomass under trial, and this had cut its waste carbon emission footprints in more than half within the area. In this trial waste, collection from the restaurants was done by Veolia environmental services and then recycled in a plant to produce energy for the restaurants. (Grimes 122)
The United States has also commended McDonalds for its unwavering support and efforts towards reducing harmful solid waste by coming up by means of packaging their products in an environmentally friendly manner that promotes reusing of the same products. All these efforts are driven towards promoting a solid and creditable publicity.
The theory here is that if the company does give back to the community then the community will recognize its efforts and the community will be more acquainted with the company hence increasing its market prominence percentagewise (Watson 210).
In McDonalds, lifespan has had very antic and extensive way of advertisement campaign. Majorly the company advertises through the TV, Radio, e- advertising and billboards. The company also promotes sports by funding sporting events in all diversity, from small leagues to international events like Olympics.
This is a way that the corporation designs its advertisement and benefits just like its fellow company, Coca-Cola. The company also advertises through making of products that bear the company’s logo to operate in various events. Nevertheless, television remains their major mode of advertisement for McDonalds (Orozco & Quintanilla 87).
Children represent a great part of television viewers. Although Advertisers do not know the children, but they understand that children are swayed easily by advertisements considering the fact, these children will have the ability to purchase the products at a later age in the future.
If a child spots something, and wants it, he becomes disturbingly persistent and annoying to the parent and in most cases, obliges his/her parent into buying what he/she (the child) wants. This is one fact that McDonalds knows and has delved fully into its exploitation for its business growth. At a specific point, McDonalds advised employees to focus on kids in an advertisement labeled; Kids Are Stars.
The employees were advised to pay extra attention to children eating at the restaurant in order to make sure that they had a positive view of the restaurant as they ate. This campaign was one of the most successful advertisement strategy McDonalds had ever come up with but was stopped due to criticism that it was immoral to use children as advertisement props (Orozco & Quintanilla 90).
Summary of the Analysis of the two Companies
The overview that has just been made shows how these two great companies have utilized a great deal of advertisement in order to increase their respective audience market. These companies have some few similar methods of advertising.
For instance, the Coca-Cola advertisement comprising of a train was mainly targeted at affecting the child audience as is similar with McDonalds’ advertisement dubbed Kids Are Stars signifying that the two companies have identified that children are a viable target audience (Whyte & Lauridsen 45).
These companies also focus on giving back to the community in order to increase their publicity through elaborate and effective Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives. Still both of these companies extend their advertisement strategy to the playground by acting as key sponsors of major and notable sports events like the Olympics (Murden 56).
This notwithstanding, Coca-Cola and McDonalds do differ in their advertisement strategies in some ways. One way is that McDonalds only ventures into sponsorship of small sports events whereas Coca-Cola Majorly deals with promotion of sports of a higher caliber.
McDonalds also produces adverts that are used by all the company’s branches as compared to Coca-Cola that prefers each region produces its own advertisement style according to the location area. These two companies can be used to signify the power that advertisement holds.
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