E 164 - Analyzing Coca-Cola's Business Marketing Communications

This report provides an in-depth analysis of Coca-Cola's business marketing communications strategies. It begins with a company overview, detailing Coca-Cola's history, product range, and market share. The report uses the STP model to profile the target market and explores various modes of marketing communication, including advertising, public relations, and direct marketing. A PESTLE analysis identifies external factors affecting consumer behavior related to Coca-Cola, and the AIDA model is used to justify the brand's marketing strategies. The report also discusses marketing communication theory, focusing on Coca-Cola's Children Policy (2008) and the consumer buyer decision process. Finally, it contrasts Coca-Cola's strategies with NIKE's marketing communication strategy during the PyeongChang 2018 Olympic Winter Games to evaluate effectiveness, providing a comprehensive overview of Coca-Cola's marketing approach.

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).

The prime focus of Coca-cola’s marketing communication is advertising. Coca-cola has many
best in class advertisements in their profile sins the beginning which is appreciated worldwide.
The best advertisement of Coca-cola is considered to be the “world’s most famous television
AD”, showed a camera panning across the hilltop and showcasing people from all the ethnics
sing the pop song made by Coca-cola (Gillespie & Riddle, 2015). The advertisement coasted
$250,000, considered to be the most expensive advertisement of the time. Coca-cola has used
every aspect of advertisement such as “radio”, “magazine and newspaper”, “outdoor media”.
The second important mode of marketing communication for Coca-cola is public relation. In
terms of that aspect, Coca-cola is using social media as the medium such as twitter and Facebook
for public communication marketing. Coca-cola has two twitter accounts “@CocaCola” and
“@CocaColaCo” in order to communicate with the public in a two way communication and
educate them of the ongoing events (Sheth, 2017). The prime focus of Coca-cola for public
relation marketing communication mode is social media using iconic campaign like “Polar Bear”
with association with “WWE” during the “Super Bowl”. This allowed the brand to integrate
social media with the public relation CSR plan.
PESTLE factors affecting the consumer behaviour related to Coca-cola:
The company follows strict guidelines and cutting edge technology in order to serve the public a
bottle of soda. However, the operational parts are dependent on some macro factors for the
brand. PESTEL analysis has been conducted in order to figure out the factors.
PESTLE ANALYSIS

Political factors
Change in rules and legislations of FDA
Change in labour laws in UK
Modification in tax charges
Economic Factors
The majority of business comes from beverage
industry
Roughly income of 70% comes from business
outside of UK
Different tastes and preferences around the glob
Social Factor
Social awareness of health rejecting drinks with
more sugar in UK
Effective CSR activity and educating the people
about health
Dependency on sugar based product is getting
rejected by socity.
Technological Factor
Use of top notch technology to produce massive
number of drinks with best quality
Using social media technology to connect with
people
Usage of technologically advanced billboards
Legal Factors
Change in legal laws in UK post Brexit might
change the patent criteria
Environmental Factor
In case of any climatic changes, accessibility to
water will cause losses as the products require
water to be produced
Humid weather boosts up the sales figure as
public consume more o soft drinks in order to cool
themselves down
Non-adherence of environmental laws can affect
the brand heavily.

AIDA model (Attention, Interest, Desire and Action):
The AIDA model is the best marketing model accepted worldwide. Coca-cola has adopted and
applied AIDA model with ease. The basic structure of AIDA modle has been described below:
Attention: This part of the model is about generating attention amongst the people about any
upcoming product. Coca-cola organized a campaign prior to Diet Cock in order to gain attention
from the customers (Ireland & Ashton, 2017).
Interest: In continuation to attention part, comes the interest generating part in the customers so
that they go ahead and start looking further into the product once you have got their attention.
Coca-cola arranged a digital coupon program to distribute free samples of their upcoming
beverage (Athavale, 2015).
Desire: This section is about moving your customers from liking it to wanting it by connecting
certain emotions of the public with the product in case of Coca-cola through their advertisement
where they connected the public emotions with the products (Schneider Hahn, Scherer, Basso &
Brachak dos Santos, 2016).
Action: In continuation to the entire previous step, this is the final stage when the customer goes
and purchases the products.
Marketing communication theory:
In the contemporary era, customers are very cautious about the way of communication as they
want to learn about the product from the communication made. Coca-cola use different theories
and strategies in order to make the communication interesting and informative.

In the social media marketing of two-way theory it is important that the communication the
company is making should get a response in the form of feedback and the communication should
not be broadcast is nature (Baker & Saren, 2016). In regards to that Coca-cola has conducted a
strategy based on the theory which has been stated below.
Children Policy (2008): In the year 2008 Coca-cola has developed a policy based on “Two-way
marketing communication theory” stating that they will not target any children as customer
below 12 years of age and will also not promote their products where the density of children
below 12 years is on the higher side (Stuckler, Ruskin & McKee, 2018). This was a response to
the public request where parents have responded that kids are getting addicted to the products at
very early age of their lives. This kind of marketing communication strategy made Coca-cola
looked like a concerned corporation about the development of young generation and brought the
brand closer to its consumers.
Consumer buyer decision process:
This process is mainly consists of the stages a customer go through before making the purchase
decision. This consists 5 stages as mentioned below.
Problem or need generation: At the preliminary stage the buyer feels the recognition of a
particular problem or need without which a purchase cannot take place. The need might generate
by internal stimuli such as hunger or thrust or external stimuli such as advertisement or word of
mouth (Karimi, Papamichail & Holland, 2015).
Information search: In continuation to that, buyer starts to look out for the needed object once
the need has been located. Buyer starts to do research from his or her end in order to find the best
fit product or service needed in order to address the need of problem generated at the first step.

The buyer may rely on “print”, “visual”, “online media” or “word of mouth” in order to gather
information.
Evaluation of alternatives: Followed by the second stage, the buyer starts to evaluate the
available alternatives in order to choose the product or service. The buyer decides based on
certain criteria on which the purchase will take place
Purchase decision: This is the penultimate step where the buyer makes the decision of buying a
product or service from a vendor or survice provider after analyzing all the previous steps.
Pose-purchase behaviour: Surprisingly the process does not end after the consumption of the
product. Depending on the consumption of the product the buyer evaluates if the product or
service has sufficiently addressed the need of the buyer or not. If did not do so, then the buyer
will take needed action. At this point, the buyer might influence other potential buyer whether to
buy the product or not (Karimi, Papamichail & Holland, 2015).

Task 2:
Developing marketing communication strategies
In the contemporary era, UK based customers are more aware of health conditions and switching
to healthier habits and products day by day (Petersen, Kushwaha & Kumar, 2015). In order to
address the demands of the changing market scenario, Coca-cola has introduced healthy product
range including “Fuze Tea” and “Powerade Zero”. The online marketing strategy will be
developed in the coming steps as mentioned below:
Selection of target audience:
Targeting the audience is the first and very important step in order to build a successful strategy.
Coca-cola has never faulted their business by narrowing down the targeted customer. In context
to that, these products will be targeted for everyone as consumption of these products would not
harm or cause any health related issue. Thereafter, the targeted audience will be from every age
segments.
Communication objectives:
To educate the customers about importance of being healthy
To let the customer know the benefits of fruit based drinks
To provide knowledge about choosing a healthier product
To letting the customers know that Coca-cola’s social responsibilities towards a healthier
tomorrow.