The Coca Cola Company: Dasani’s Brand Fiasco Case Study

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Coca Cola is one of the most famous and successful global brands specializing in the soft drinks production. Consumers in the USA and Europe have strong associations in relation to Coca Cola products and their high quality. The company has the significant international promotional experience and takes the highest positions regarding the sales and brand recognition.

Moreover, the success of Coca Cola products’ distribution is based on the effective marketing strategy which is improved every year. From this point, new products or strategies proposed by the company are discussed as potentially successful.

Thus, following the world trends, the company proposed the new bottled water brand Dasani in the late 1990s. Coca Cola developed Dasani and the associated marketing strategy during several years in the USA before launching the product in the United Kingdom that is why possible difficulties and barriers to enter the market were predicted and analyzed basing on the US experience (Garrett, 2004).

The problem was in the fact that the aspect of brand recognition in the United Kingdom could not influence the customer loyalty because of shifting the focus to the product’s quality, issues of credibility and reliability in relation to the used water origin.

The fact that Coca Cola used the purified water instead of mineral water was discussed by the public as the problem of credibility and reliability. The negative consequences of the situation were affected by impossibility to use the media sources effectively and to concentrate on changing the company’s promotion priorities.

Focusing on the details of the public’s reaction to the product, it is possible to determine the factors which can be discussed as contributing to the failure of the Dasani UK launch. The first problem depended on the fact that Coca Cola promoters did not focus enough on the aspect of differentiation while using the marketing strategy which was previously effective in relation to the US market.

Thus, the market of the bottled water in the United Kingdom is also segmented, but Coca Cola oriented to the wrong competitors, promoting Dasani water within the segment of the mineral waters. Thus, in spite of the fact that the non-mineral origin of the water was stated on the bottle labels clearly, this detail was not emphasized during the promotional campaign, leading to the further misunderstandings.

The lack of the necessary focus on the origin of the water and its purified nature can be discussed as the second factor contributing to the brand’s failure. The next problem is connected with the price policy and attracting the target audience. The prices set for Dasani water were influenced by the brand’s policies and intensified brand recognition (Bokaie, 2007).

However, the scandal associated with the water origin revealed the fact that the prices were too high in comparison with the prices in the market sector of the bottled water in the United Kingdom. To re-launch Dasani water in the United Kingdom, it is important to improve the strategy and shift the marketing priorities because of the necessity to develop the public’s interest to the purified bottled water as the independent high quality product instead of comparing it with the mineral water brands and products.

The improvements are necessary in relation to developing the product image. Thus, the bottled water produced by Dasani is of high quality because of using the modern purified systems and the process of reverse osmosis (Barnes, Hastings, & Borkowski, 2004). From this point, it can successfully meet the customers’ needs to use only pure water which is the part of their daily healthy lifestyle.

To respond to the needs of the modern healthy lifestyle, it is important to orient only to the high quality products and Dasani water can be discussed as such a product because its quality is guaranteed by Coca Cola standards. Thus, Dasani water is extremely pure water with added minerals to contribute to the persons’ health and lifestyle with focusing on the everyday use while performing daily routines or sporting activities.

The accentuation of the details which are necessary to differentiate the brand and the concentration on the image important for customers are necessary for the effective promotion (Clark, 2006). The promotional plan for the effective marketing of the improved Dasani product should include three new ideas based on the changes in promoting and advertising the product.

The main goal of the new promotional plan is to overcome the consequences of the previous failure within the market and to form the customers’ new vision of the brand (Kerin, Hartley, & Rudelius, 2012).

  1. The first step is the usage of electronic media. It is important to inform the public about the fact of improving the product. To achieve this goal, it is necessary to use bright Internet advertisements placed on websites about the healthy way of living.
    These advertisements should provide the basic points about the product’s improvements and present the new image of the product vividly. Thus, Dasani bottled water should be demonstrated in a new design which responds to the principles of healthy lifestyle and eco-friendly environment.
  2. The information presented in TV advertisements should be more attractive and evoking the public’s interest in relation to the product. Thus, it is important to focus on attracting celebrities to participate in the promotion campaign and develop the image of the product, increasing the brand recognition and developing the reliability and credibility aspects.
    TV advertisements with celebrities allow demonstrating all the important qualities of the product and advantages. Moreover, it is possible to create the complex picture of the product’s image. To achieve the marketing goals, it is relevant to invite famous athletes for promoting the product because of the developed associations with the healthy lifestyle.
  3. The information about Dasani products presented in the print sources should be most detailed in comparison with the TV and Internet advertisements. It is effective to use much space in order to attract the audience’s attention to the product.
    This kind of advertisements can include interviews with experts in order to explain the differences between mineral and purified water and accentuate the effectiveness and value of using the purified water produced by Coca Cola every day. Much attention should be paid to the balanced composition of the water with added minerals and components which help people become healthier.

To cope with the results of the fiasco in the UK market in 2004, brand managers and promoters need to develop more effective strategies according to which availability, usefulness, quality, and style of the Dasani water should be accentuated. The difference of the Dasani water from mineral waters should be discussed as the product’s advantage instead of weakness.

References

Barnes, R., Hastings, S., & Borkowski, M. (2004, March 11). Can Dasani overcome troubled introduction? Marketing, p. 17.

Bokaie, J. (2007, May 9). Coca-Cola aims to right wrongs. Marketing, p. 17.

Clark, N. (2006, June 28). Coca-Cola eyes second stab at UK water sector. Marketing, p. 4.

Garrett, B. (2004). . Web.

Kerin, R., Hartley, S., & Rudelius, W. (2012). Marketing. USA: McGraw-Hill Irwin.

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