Strategic Decision Making for Coca-Cola Bottling Company

The assignment focuses on the strategic decision making process for Coca-Cola Bottling Company, specifically in the context of their Deep River Rock bottled water product. The document explores industry analysis, market segmentation strategy, and innovation in product and promotion as vital activities to increase the market share and customer engagement.

Running head: MANAGEMENT
Marketing Management
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Executive Summary
This current report deals with the marketing in the context of Deep River Rock bottled water.
This drinking water is a popular brand of Coca-Cola Bottling Company. This brand is introduced
in Ireland and the main target market is 18-35 years of age group people. It has been found that
the sale of this bottled water has been increasing rapidly in Ireland however; still, Coca-Cola
Bottling Company is facing huge competition. They need to increase their customer engagement
and to develop some strategies to enhance their sale. Innovation in product promotion and
development will be the beneficial strategies for this organization. On the other hand, market
segmentation and position analysis strategies will be also effective for this organization to
enhance their market share and customer engagement.

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................4
Analysis of the product category in the context of Deep River Rock.............................................4
Analysis of the sectors in the context of DRR.................................................................................5
Strategies to increase the market share and maintain the profit in the context of Coca-Cola.........6
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................9
References......................................................................................................................................10

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Introduction
Marketing management is a process to develop specific strategies and planning to market
a specific product or service (Homburg, Jozić & Kuehnl, 2017). In order to promote a product, it
is crucial to concrete a plan as it allows an organization to introduce the product to the target
audience. An organization needs to develop the marketing strategy of a product based on its
category. This study deals with the product category and the strategies in the context of Coca-
Cola Bottling. Deep River Rocks or DRR is the brand of Coca-Cola Bottling. Hence, to enhance
the marketing for this particular brand by Coca-Cola will be discussed in this study.
Analysis of the product category in the context of Deep River Rock
Deep River Rock or DRR is a bottled water product, which is produced by the Coca-Cola
Bottling company. This brand is not a global brand as it is developed by the Coca-Cola-Bottlers
Ireland or CCBI. This product is popular in Ireland. In the recent years, the growth of DRR is
significant as it is considered as the high quality bottled water in Ireland (Ie.coca-
colahellenic.com, 2018). However, Coca-Cola wants to increase the package size of DRR to
enhance its sale. At present, the package of DRR ranges from 330 ml to 2 liters. This is a sugar-
free product with no calories. This healthy drink is very popular in Ireland. Its increasing range
of pack size is influencing the customers as they are able to aid a greater hydration. In the recent
years, Coca-Cola Bottlers has infused the minerals and the herbal extracts in order to improve the
category of DRR.
Consumers can easily define DRR as it is a healthy drinking water and categorized under
FMCG product. DRR is categorized under the food and beverage industry. Coca-Cola Bottler is

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famous for its beverage. Hence, by offering DRR they are able to cover a large number of
consumers in Ireland. Drinking water is the basic need of consumers thus there is no effect of the
seasonal changes on DRR. In the context of other food and drinking products, customer needs
may vary. However, sell of DRR is similar throughout the year. Customers choose product
category based on the ingredients (Ling, 2017). However, today the customers are more health
conscious thus; healthy products are their first preferences. Coca-Cola Bottlers offers healthy
drink by introducing DRR in Ireland. DRR is a fast moving consumer good thus, it has covered a
large population in this particular country. However, many other organizations especially
PepsiCo is one of the major competitors of Coca-Cola. This company focuses on producing the
substitute products of Coca-cola, which is a big threat for DRR. Many beverage companies
produce the drinking water, which creates a strong competitive environment for DRR as well as
Coca-cola in Ireland.
Analysis of the sectors in the context of DRR
Market segments analysis is crucial for each brand as it focuses on the target audience. In
order to promote a brand market segmentation and the analysis of the sector are vital (Scott,
2017). However, DRR is categorized under the beverage industry thus through PESTLE analysis
the sector of DRR can be analyzed. Coca-Cola Bottlers has introduced Deep River Rock bottled
drinking water in Ireland. The political environment of Ireland is stable and it is a democratic
country. This brings a good opportunity for the Coca-Cola to enhance the sale of DRR in Ireland.
However, Coca-Cola is categorized under FDA (Food and Drug Administration). Hence,
changes in any law by Ireland government may affect operation process of Coca-Cola in the
context of DRR (Ie.coca-colahellenic.com, 2018). Service sectors have a great contribution to the
economy of Ireland. However, 72% of the total GDP comes from the business industries of

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Ireland. On the other hand, this country has faced economic recession in the year 2009 but they
overcome it through their strong fundamentals. Hence, this ensures that Coca-Cola can improve
the economy of Ireland by enhancing their DRR sell.
Social factor focuses on the income level and the lifestyle of the people in Ireland.
However, the people of Ireland belong from high to mid-range income group and they are
socially aware (Collison, Brennan & Rios‐Morales, 2017). As a result, they are willing to
purchase the drinking water. On the other hand, Coca-Cola offers its products to the cultured
countries to meet the demands of the consumers. They have focused on the 18-35 years age
group of people to sell DRR. Such group has good income and social awareness. Thus, this
particular group will be a good target audience for C Coca-Cola to sell their new product Deep
River Rock bottled water. In Ireland, information technology is the leading industry. Thus, this
country is technologically fast. This brings the best opportunity for Coca-Cola to improve the
feature and operation process of DRR.
Legal factor focuses on the maintenance of all rights in Coca-Cola. They comply with
the legal requirements while operating in a new country. Water accessibility is the big factors for
Coca-Cola as they offer soft drinks and drinking water. Due to the water accessibility issue, this
organization has faced losses (Ling, 2017). Hence, water accessibility is the major
environmental factor of Coca-Cola. This organization needs to follow the environmental laws
while introducing DRR to reduce their impact on the environment.

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Strategies to increase the market share and maintain the profit in the context of Coca-Cola
As per the given scenario, it has been found Coca-Cola Bottling Company has been
facing a huge competition in the market. They need to enhance their customer engagement to
gain competitive advantage.
Position analysis
Position analysis is one of the major strategic actions for the business organizations to
enhance their market share. This strategic helps the organization to identify their primary market
condition, nature of the product and resources of the company (Ayden, Demirbag & Tatoglu,
2018). This strategy will be helpful for Coca-Cola Bottling Company to increase their market
share by analyzing their current position. They will be able to identify their primary market is
stable, declining or growing in the context of DRR. Therefore, this strategy will allow them to
analyze their product nature however, it is differentiable or homogenous. Therefore, they will be
able to identify the status of their resources that are high, low or medium. Hence, such
positioning analysis will be beneficial for Coca-Cola Bottling Company to improve their position
and enhance the share by analyzing the different aspects of their DRR brand.
Product innovation
Product innovation is a good strategy to engage the customers in a business. However, in
the recent years, Coca-Cola Bottling Company has been facing challenges due to the rising
competitors in the beverage industry. In order to gain competitive advantages in the market,
innovation should be taken by the organization (Liu & Atuahene-Gima, 2018). However, if
Coca-Cola Bottling Company brings innovation in their DRR product then it will enhance the
customer attention towards this product. As a result, customer engagement will be enhanced. In

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the recent years, Coca-Cola Bottling Company aims to use herbal extract in Deep River Rock.
Such approach will be helpful for this organization to meet their innovative strategy. Product
innovation not only enhances the customer engagement but also helps to increase the market
share for a particular product. This strategy is considered as the most effective strategy to
enhance the market share.
Market segmentation strategy
Market segmentation strategy is another vital activity to increase the share in the existing
market. As argued by (Nenonen & Storbacka, 2018), many organizations fail to enhance their
sale due to inappropriate market segmentation. However, Coca-Cola Bottling Company focuses
on the 18-35 years age group people to sell Deep River Rock bottled water. They do not focus on
the mass market. Hence, selection of the mass market as the target market will be beneficial for
this organization increase their sale as bottled drinking water is the basic requirement of
everyone who is going outside of their home.
Innovation in promotion
Promotion innovation is one of the major strategies for the organizations to enhance their
market share as well as the customer engagement. This strategy is beneficial for an organization
to innovate new approach in their product promotion to attract the customers to their product (Di
Benedetto & Lindgreen, 2018). In the context of DRR Coca-Cola Bottling Company can use
social media advertising as an innovative approach for their bottled water. Social media
advertisement covers a large number of customers from different geographical regions. This will
be helpful to enhance the customer engagement and sales in the context of DRR. Such strategic

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activity will allow Coca-Cola Bottling Company to increase their consumer numbers and sale of
DRR by engaging more consumers.
Conclusion
The above piece of work highlights on the product category, industry analysis and the
strategic decision in the context of Deep River Rock bottled water. It is important for this
organization to carry out a huge market research to understand their current position in the
market. On the other hand, innovation in the business promotion will be an effective approach
for Coca-Cola Bottling Company to increase the market share.

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References
Ayden, Y., Demirbag, M., & Tatoglu, E. (2018). Market Entry Strategies of Turkish MNEs.
In Turkish Multinationals (pp. 127-168). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Collison, P., Brennan, L., & Rios‐Morales, R. (2017). Attracting Chinese Foreign Direct
Investment to Small, Developed Economies: The Case of Ireland. Thunderbird
International Business Review, 59(3), 401-419.
Di Benedetto, C. A., & Lindgreen, A. (2018). The Emergence of Industrial Marketing
Management as the Leading Academic Journal in Business-to-Business
Marketing. Industrial Marketing Management.
Homburg, C., Jozić, D., & Kuehnl, C. (2017). Customer experience management: toward
implementing an evolving marketing concept. Journal of the Academy of Marketing
Science, 45(3), 377-401.
Ie.coca-colahellenic.com. (2018). Deep RiverRock. Retrieved 25 February 2018, from
http://ie.coca-colahellenic.com/en/brands-and-campaigns/explore-our-brands-and-
products/deep-riverrock/
Ling, X. (2017). Customer Relationship Management: Case study Coca-Cola Company.
Liu, W., & Atuahene-Gima, K. (2018). Enhancing product innovation performance in a
dysfunctional competitive environment: The roles of competitive strategies and market-
based assets. Industrial Marketing Management.

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Nenonen, S., & Storbacka, K. (2018). Smash: Using Market Shaping to Design New Strategies
for Innovation, Value Creation, and Growth.
Scott, M. (2017). Renewing urban communities: Environment, citizenship and sustainability in
Ireland. Taylor & Francis.