Marketing & Communications in a Digital World

This report discusses the marketing mix and market research plan for Coca Cola's new product launch. It identifies the positive and negative impacts of each factor on the relaunch of the new product. The report also specifies various research requirements and the best sources which can be opted by the firm in carrying out successful research. The target audience, budget, human resources, competitors, and advertising techniques are discussed in detail. The report concludes with the strength and weakness of the research.

Marketing &
Communications in a
Digital World

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Identifying the positive and negative impacts of marketing mix of coco cola............................3
Market research............................................................................................................................4
Detailed marketing research plan.................................................................................................5
PART 2 ...........................................................................................................................................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8
APPENDIX......................................................................................................................................9
Interview......................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Marketing research plan refers to document which contains information regarding
potential markets to accomplish the overall objectives of firm. The present report is based on
Coca Cola who is relaunching new variant of iconic drink to gain competitive advantage and to
attract new potential customers. Further, the report will analysis marketing mix and identify
positive and negative impact of each factor on relaunch of new product. Moreover, the report
will also specify various research requirements and the best sources which can be opted by the
firm in carrying out successful research.
MAIN BODY
Identifying the positive and negative impacts of marketing mix of coco cola
Marketing mix refers to list of factors that can be controlled by company to influence
consumers to buy its products. For the coca cola company some of them are as follows.
Product : Coca cola sold in various sizes and packaging. The logo is clearly made so that
it can be easily differentiated from other brands. Merit is that it will help the quoted firm to reach
large masses through broadening its business opportunities (Marketing mix of coca cola, 2019).
Demerit is that consumers with set perceived thoughts may not find the product valuable and
hence revenues increases are not guaranteed.
Price : Coca cola will use competitive pricing strategy as little higher price of the product
make consumers feel that brand is more reliable in terms of the quality. Further, negative impact
can be created if the prices of the product are changed at frequently which may shift the
customer base.
Place : The quoted firm has decided to sell the product through various online and offline
platforms in UK market where it can be easily reached to large number of audience (Lim, 2021).
On the contrary with inefficient market reach the firm may result in loss of various production
units.
Promotion : coca cola would use channels such as online mediums in UK to promote its
good for example Netflix where benefit is that personalized marketing can be adopted but on the
contrary the firm have problem as customers can check the product review on high ranking
product review sites (Kamins, 2018).

People : Target audience would be among the age group of 18-35 which are ready to
consume new variants of drinks available in market. Positive impact is major population in the
country consists of this age group but on other side firm would incur losses if product is not liked
in this group (Wardhana, 2020).
Process : Products will be manufactured in batches so that it can be made easily available
according to the requirements as well as prevent losses from manufacturing extra units.
However, if there is excessive demand in the market than it may create problems to serve large
masses.
Physical evidence: If the infrastructure, design, interior etc. of the outlets is not
(appealing) than customers will not purchase products and rather shift to new sources. On the
contrary, improved physical facility and designs will attract more customers and hence sales
would increase.
Market research
There are various research requirements which are needed by firm for successful relaunch
some of them are as follows
 Target audience: Defining the audience is very important to know for which group the
product is made. It gives direction in marketing and ensures consistency in operations.
 Budget : It is also very important requirement for research because if firm exceeds the
set budget than cost of production increases and a result it would result in high prices and
less sales.
 Human resources : It is the most important element of research as all activities starting
from production to selling of the products depends upon people who are working in the
organization for some personal goals and objectives.
 Competitors : It is very essential to find out who are rivalry in the market that are
offering similar products at lower prices (McDaniel Jr and Gates, 2018). In such cases
firm will collect more ideas to come up with product that has different features and are
unique.
 Advertising techniques : Various methods are available in the market through which
product can be sold to large number of audiences. Best advertising technique also affect
the sales of product to a large extent (The 5 step marketing research process, 2019).

Initially, company launch Coca cola which faces the problem i.e. inappropriate budget
limit and lack of time management which are two major concerns for successful market
operations of a firm. To overcome such problems the firm will set key performance indicators
which will ensure whether the firm has achieved the set budget or not and take corrective actions
or budget exceeds the limit. Also, proper time must be managed to check that all activities are
completed on time and there is no delay in production process.
There are various research methods which are available in markets and one which will be
adopted by quoted firm would be primary research method in which information could be
gathered through various means such as interviews, questionnaire, surveys, focus groups, visiting
to competitors place etc (Damen and Hooft, 2019). Hence, one which will be proved good for
Coca cola would be interview and observations method through which various details regarding
the choices, preferences, taste, attitudes etc. of the customers can be gathered, organized as well
as analysed and accordingly the product can be reviewed or launched in market with certain
modifications.
Further methods which will not be selected by quoted firm would be secondary research
methods includes online data, data collected from government and non government sources, data
available in various libraries, institutions etc (Heaton,2020). Such research methods are proved
not useful when completely new product is launched in the market and extensive research needs
to be carried out to gain maximum benefits. In relation with relaunch of coca cola products
online data would be irrelevant as authenticity of data cannot be identified. Also, they are
unspecific in nature as the research materials can be of outdated nature and offer little or no
value to the researcher. Moreover, the researcher is not the owner of data so everyone can access
it easily and also data collected can be of biased nature which will provide less relevant results.
Detailed marketing research plan.
Objectives : The main motive of this research is to relaunch a product to grow the customer base
by gaining competitive advantage and offer a new variant in the market so that large amount of
profits can be achieved.
Collecting relevant data and information: In this research data would be collected from
various primary sources such as interviews and observations. In interview few questions would
be asked through a questionnaire and through observations buying habits of customer would be
analysed.

Analysis : From the interview conducted it has been analysed that majority of people are not
aware of brand in same way as compare to other competitors. Also, due to weak promotional
activities the product can't be sold to large markets that is why it is necessary for the firm to
focus on various promotional activities to make the brand popular.
Target market : For this research the target market chosen is young age group of 18-35 which is
most likely to experiment new things according to their changing needs and preferences. Also,
such target group comprises major population.
Timeline : The time period which is set to achieve the firm goals and objectives is six months to
fully understand and conquer the large sections of market.
Budget : The estimated budget set for this project is been described as follows
Particulars Amount in pounds
Marketing 3000
Recruitment 1000
Raw materials 2500
Advertising 1600
Miscellaneous 500
Total 8600
Research into action: The set marketing plan will be executed through marketing campaign and
through digital world which includes various social media platforms such as face-book,
Instagram, online websites etc (Staubmann and Lidz, 2018). In modern era of internet it helps to
reach to large number of customers in a limited time period.
Strength and weakness of the research
From the above analysis conducted it can be said that major strength was that overall idea
was helpful in finding out that most of the people were aware of the brand existence in the
market and also have knowledge of variety of products that are sold by the quoted firm (Hieu
and Nwachukwu, 2020). This way selling the product in target market was comparatively easier
than traditional methods. Major weakness of this research is that total budget exceeded than
planned which has resulted in more costs in carrying out basic activities. Also, various

promotional activities were also not systematically carried out on various locations which
resulted in less number of gatherings of people to know more about the products.
PART 2
Enclosed in PPT
CONCLUSION
From the above report it can concluded that marketing mix helpful in identifying the
positive and negative impacts on the initial launch of the product. Also, marketing research
requirements had identified and marketing problem has been solved through implementation of
the best methods. Further, a detailed marketing research plan has been carried out to find out to
launch a successful marketing campaign in target market. Lastly, strength and weakness have
also been closely analysed and identified through this report.

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Damen, J. A. and Hooft, L., 2019. The increasing need for systematic reviews of prognosis
studies: strategies to facilitate review production and improve quality of primary research.
Diagnostic and prognostic research. 3(1). pp.1-4.
Heaton, J., 2020. Secondary analysis of qualitative data. SAGE Publications Limited.
Hieu, V. M. and Nwachukwu, C., 2020. Human Resources, Financial Resources and Strategic
Performance: Organisational Policy as Moderator. Quality-Access to Success. 21(175).
Kamins, M., 2018. Deceptive Advertising and Promotional Techniques. World Scientific Book
Chapters, pp.151-174.
Lim, W. M., 2021. A marketing mix typology for integrated care: the 10 Ps. Journal of Strategic
Marketing. 29(5). pp.453-469.
McDaniel Jr, C. and Gates, R., 2018. Marketing research. John Wiley & Sons
Staubmann, H. and Lidz, V., 2018. Discussions on the Meaning of Rationality in Action. In
Rationality in the Social Sciences (pp. 47-51). Springer, Cham.
Wardhana, G. W., 2020. Effect of Marketing Mix on Satisfaction of Customers Indosat. Journal
of Indonesian Science Economic Research. 2(2). pp.1-5.
Online
Marketing mix of coca cola. 2019. [Online]. Available through
:<https://www.marketing91.com/marketing-mix-coca-cola/>.
The 5 step marketing research process. 2019. [Online]. Available through
:<https://www.smartbugmedia.com/blog/the-5-step-marketing-research-process>.

APPENDIX
Interview
Q.1 Are you aware of the product?
Q.2 Do you prefer coca cola brand over other competitors ?
Q.3 How often do you buy coca cola products?
Q.4 Is coca cola new variant easily available at your near stores?