Brand Management Strategies for Coca-Cola

The assignment content is about BRAND MANAGEMENT, specifically focused on Coca-Cola as a brand. It discusses the key issues faced by Coca-Cola, including declining sales and competitive position, and proposes alternative actions to regain lost customers. The content also highlights the importance of branding in enhancing business and emphasizes the need for Coca-Cola to adopt new strategies, such as diversifying products, to cope with changing market trends.

Running head: BRAND MANAGEMENT
Brand Management
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1. Outlining Coca-Cola as a brand
Coca-Cola is one of the largest beverage companies in the world. Headquartered in
Atlanta, in Georgia, it is an American multinational beverage corporation. The company is the
largest producer of carbonated drinks in the world. The Coca-Cola Company produces syrup
concentrates, which are sold to the bottlers. The company also owns its anchor bottler in North
America. The brand of Coca-Cola is popular among the people of the world. The carbonated
drink that the company offers is popular among customers of all age. The brand is well-promoted
and advertised. Along with sponsorships in various promotional events, celebrity endorsement is
also high in case of Coca-Cola. Advertisement is given adequate importance, thus, popularising
the brand. The company uses direct marketing, viral marketing, web and social media, as well as
sales promotion, in order to popularise the brand.
2. Key issues
The changing trends in the consumption of the carbonated drink affected the business of
the beverage company Coca-Cola. The awareness among the people regarding the adverse health
effects of consumption of the carbonated drinks resulted in a major issue for the beverage
company Coca-Cola. The changing environment for the beverage company resulted in the
decline of the sale of Coca-Cola (Andini and Simatupang 2014). Another issue faced by the
Coca-Cola Company is the decline in the competitive position of the company. This is because,
various other companies such as PepsiCo has been rising in power with their new products. This
also resulted in the decline of the brand value of Coca-Cola, since some of the customers shifted
their choice from Coca-Cola to PepsiCo (Barkay 2013). However, along with these issues, the
company has new opportunities as well. With the rise of the health consciousness of the people,

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regarding the consumption of carbonated drinks, Coca-Cola might consider product
diversification.
3. Alternative actions pertaining to the key issues
Brand-based comparative approaches are an effective method of understanding the brand
values and analyse the consumer behaviour towards the brands. The brand based comparison
methods chooses a group of customers to respond to the elements of marketing program. The
group of customers respond to the same elements of the brands, thus a clear comparison is seen.
The alternative actions to the key issues include regaining the lost target customers (Rosenbaum
et al. 2015). This could be done by introducing a variety of products, other than the carbonated
drinks (Andini and Simatupang, 2014). The variety of products includes non-carbonated drinks,
fruit juices, aerated drinks, health drinks as well as non-carbonated beverages. This could be
helpful in retaining and regaining the lost customers. Moreover, Coca-Cola needs to gain
considerable competitive advantages over its competitor PepsiCo. In order to gain competitive
advantages, diversification of the products is essential. Thus, the diversification of the products
will help Coca-Cola to regain its competitive position as well as ensure gaining new
opportunities (Ertimur and Coskuner 2015).
4. Brand evaluation
A blind-test conducted on a group of consumers with Coca-Cola and two other brands
highlighted that 50% of the customers chose the brand Coca-Cola in the blind test. Thus, in the
brand-based competitive approach, Coca-Cola was identified as the best brand. The main
advantage of the brand-based comparative approach is that it encompasses all the aspects of
marketing program (Ertimur and Coskuner 2015). The exact knowledge of the brand along with

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the pricing, advertisement effectiveness, consumer loyalty is considered in brand-based
comparative approach. This comparative method is useful when the marketing activities are
under consideration. Moreover, this method is also useful, when a major change in the past
marketing of the brand (Santos et al. 2013). For example, in case of Coca-Cola, a major change
in the company took place when there was a rise in the consciousness among the consumers,
regarding the adverse health effects of carbonate drinks in the human body (Kelley et al. 2015).
During the period of this change, the advertisement and promotion of the products were
reviewed and reconsidered (Ertimur and Coskuner 2015). Thus, in such a situation, the brand-
based comparison is important. However, one of the major concerns of the brand-based
comparative approaches could highlight a particular product and its characteristics, thus making
them more salient. Thus, care need to be taken to ensure that the results of the brand-based
comparative strategy are not distorted. The experts opine that the value of the Coca-Cola name
is worth billions of dollars. However, the company claims it to be only $25 million. The asset
value of the company in 2004 was $31.3 billion. Coca-Cola allocated $2.8 billion to trademarks,
$2.2 billion to goodwill, $200 million to the customer relations and $900 million to the deferred
tax liabilities.
5. Recommendations
It is recommended that Coca-Cola should consider the diversification of the products.
This important strategy would ensure the enhancement of the brand value of Coca-Cola along
with assuring regain of the customers who has been lost, due to the rise in the health
consciousness against the consumption of the carbonated drink (Ertimur and Coskuner 2015).
This is important in order to regain the brand image of Coca-Cola. In order to chose the best
course of actions, the organizational goals needs to be revised (Krzywoszynska 2015). The

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marketing strategy also needs to be revisited. The trends in the market place have to be given
importance. The changes in the lifestyle of the people highlight the facts that they have become
aware of the adverse health effects of the carbonated drinks (Karnani 2014). This declined the
sale of the products of Coca-Cola to a significant amount. Thus, new strategies of launching non-
carbonated drinks need to be taken up, in order to ensure changes in the marketing strategies.
The brand marketing has a key role to play for any brand. In this assignment, Coca-Cola
brand, and its brand, marketing has been highlighted. With the changing environment and
changes in the lifestyle of the people, the consumption of the carbonated drink has decreased
significantly. In order to cope up with the changes, it is essential that Coca-Cola take up a
changed strategy, in order to ensure that the business does not decline significantly. Branding is
essential for the enhancement of business and has to be taken up with adequate importance. The
revised strategies taken up by Coca-Cola will ensure that the business of Coca-Cola is revived
and the changes in the customer choice do not affect the business adversely.

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References
Andini, R. A., and Simatupang, T. M. 2014. A process simulation of inventory planning and
control for Minute Maid Pulpy at Coca-Cola. International Journal of Logistics Systems and
Management, 17(1), 66-82.
Barkay, T. 2013. When business and community meet: A case study of Coca-Cola. Critical
Sociology, 39(2), 277-293.
Ertimur, B. and Coskuner-Balli, G., 2015. Navigating the institutional logics of markets:
Implications for strategic brand management. Journal of Marketing, 79(2), pp.40-61.
Karnani, A. 2014. Corporate social responsibility does not avert the tragedy of the commons.
Case study: Coca-Cola India. Economics, Management and Financial Markets, 9(3), 11.
Kelley, L., Sheehan, K. and Jugenheimer, D.W., 2015. Advertising media planning: a brand
management approach. Routledge.
Krzywoszynska, A. 2015. Wine is not Coca-Cola: marketization and taste in alternative food
networks. Agriculture and human values, 32(3), 491-503.
Rosenbaum-Elliott, R., Percy, L. and Pervan, S., 2015. Strategic brand management. Oxford
University Press, USA.
Santos-Vijande, M.L., del Río-Lanza, A.B., Suárez-Álvarez, L. and Díaz-Martín, A.M., 2013.
The brand management system and service firm competitiveness. Journal of Business
Research, 66(2), pp.148-157.