Marketing Communications Strategies: Coca-Cola and Nike Case Studies

E 164 Iuliana Frumuzache Business
Marketing Communications

Table of Contents
Introduction:....................................................................................................................................3
Task 1:.............................................................................................................................................3
Task 2:...........................................................................................................................................11
Task 3.............................................................................................................................................16
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................20
Reference List................................................................................................................................22

Introduction:
In the research work, the researcher will try to describe different types of marketing strategies of
a chosen enterprise. In order to do so, the researcher will select Coca-Cola as the brand and
describe its products range and will critically evaluate different method of marketing. In
continuation to that, to identify the external risks, PESTLE analysis has been carried out. AIDA
model has been described in order to justify the strategies taken up by Coca-Cola. A marketing
communication strategy has been formed in order to understand the importance of
communication process which has been described further. In continuation to that the marketing
communication strategy of NIKE during “PyeongChang 2018 Olympic Winter Games” has
chosen in order to contrast and evaluate the effectiveness.

Task 1:
Company Overview:
In the year 1886, Atlanta pharmacist “Dr. John S. Pemberton” composed flavoured syrup and
mixed it with carbonated water. This was the creation of the legendary brand in beverage
industrial history of humanity, named by Mr. Frank M. Robinson, as Coca-Cola. The sales
average during the first year was 9 servings per day. Today Coca-Cola makes a serving of 1.9
billion per day worldwide. `The branding of Coca-Cola has always been in focus and a
distinctive beverage needs an idiosyncratic packaging as well. Thereafter, in the year 1977, the
contoured bottle got trademarked. In terms of advertising and marketing, Coca-Cola has always
been at the top of their games. From the beginning of the branding, they have used friends,
family and happiness as their keywords as their key points for advertisement. Considering the
current days, this gigantic brand has 48.6% of market share with the closest competitor brand
hovering at around 25%.
Range of products and services:
The brand deals with soft drink products including “beverage concentres” and syrups with a
major focus to beverages. There are more than 300 brands including the major brand “Coke”,
“Fanta”, “Lift”, “Sprite”, “Odwalla”, “Coca-cola freestyle”, “ciel” and “mello yello”. The
packaging and pricing of the products varies depending on geographical conditions such as
different prices and packaging for different countries. Coca-cola packages its beverages of 2
liters, 600ml and 300ml bottles into plastic and contoured glass bottles. Drinks are also available
in 375ml cans and the containers are trademarked and globally recognized by 94% of world
populations.

Analysis of specific products and profiling of target market (segmenting, targeting,
positioning):
Amongst all the remarkable products of Coca-cola, the focused brands are very limited and they
are Coke itself, and “Fanta”, “Lift”, “Sprite” and “Frutopia”. Coca-cola uses significant STP
model in order to profile the target market. The STP model includes segmenting of the market,
selection or targeting of potential segment and product positioning for targeted segment. The
STP model of Coca-cola for the prime brands is mentioned below.
Segmenting:
Segmenting procedure of the leading beverage brand is not single market centric but they use a
multi-segment focused procedure, which implies that the brand has all around characterised
market selection (Tanner & Raymond, 2015). This imposes a portrait of blending for each
portion. In order to do so, the brand produces 400 discrete product lines and 3,500 item blend.
Targeting:
In terms of targeting of the prime brands, Coca-cola does not have any specific segment. On the
contrary, Coca-cola adapts the marketing strategies in order to address the needs of consumers of
different segments (Shao & Bao, 2015). The brand “”Coke” is targeted to 12-30 years of
consumers, which is the youth despite of any gender discriminations. Moreover, the brand target
everyone as potential customers but the most potential customers as per Coca-cola is the age
segment from 18 to 25 years. The reason is that this age group covers the 40% of total age
segment. Combining all the prime focused segments, it can be concluded that for Coca-cola the
most lucrative segment to target is the youth, mobile generation.

Positioning:
Coca-cola has successfully positioned the brand amongst the 200 countries and succeeded to
maintain the same image worldwide by adapting to a core statement of “think global, act local”.
This motto helped the brand keeping the core product “Coke” well positioned worldwide and
addressing the needs of different localised demands. Coca-cola has been successful in
positioning the brand in the targeted segment by connecting the product with the emotions of the
consumers by using unique selling proposition such as “Live the coke side of the life” which is
related to happiness (Urde & Koch, 2014). The customers connect the brand with a happy
emotion and become loyal to the brand, making the purchase almost automated.
Different modes of marketing communication:
Coca-cola being the biggest brand in beverage industry, indulge themselves into a robust
marketing communication plans in order to keep the market presence prominent. The prime
marketing communication modes chosen by Coca-cola is “advertising”, “public relation”,
“personal selling”, “sells promotion” and “direct marketing” (Habibi, Laroche & Richard, 2014).
Coca-cola has used a unique personal selling strategy in history using coupons which was a
newly introduced method. In present days the brand has also used digital coupons in to conduct a
sales promotion. Personal selling has been in the target of the brand as they hire independent
sales persons to communicate with the retail stores to make the sale (Schlegelmilch, 2016). The
use of direct marketing is also present there in Coca-cola as they allow the customers to connect
with the company by providing a link on their official website using which the customers can
send feedback mails (Jackson & Ahuja, 2016).