Coca-Cola's Product Line Identification and Branding Strategies

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INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT

Coca Cola is a soft drink manufacturing company initially patented as a medicine. It is
manufactured in late 19th century by John Stith Pemberton. Its marketing strategies are quite
different from all other companies and still the formula of coca cola is kept secret in the
perspective of trading. Its marketing tactics are brought in marketplace throughout 20th century.
This term ‘coca cola’ derived from two original ingredients that are kola nuts and coca leaves. It
has various variants like diet coke, diet coke caffeine-free etc. In a 350 grams coca cola bottle, 38
grams of sugar is added. Coca cola sell concentrate to different foodservice distributors. The
products of coke sold in around 200 countries in the world with approx. 1.8 billion Consumers
throughout the world. This essay covers the models used by coca cola Company to identify the
product lines. Further, their unique products are discussed in essay that helps the coca cola
company to establish themselves in market. Furthermore, in this essay the intangible ideas of
coca cola across market are discussed.
1. With the use of appropriate models identify various product lines within the Coca-Cola
Company.
Product line is launched by coca cola when it is selling its high priced product under its well-
known brand like Diet coke, Fanta, Sprite etc. Then the product line can be launched over same
name but at lower price.
So, coca cola is using various strategies to address its product lines:
a) Driving revenue and Profit growth: Coca cola mainly focuses on keeping the beverages
that can be easily afford by customers. It maintains a balance between its pricing and
volume by relying more on pricing strategies. It enhances the profits by offering of small
packages.
b) Brands and business: It usually invests in its brands to enhance the overall business. Also,
it helps in increasing the quality as well as quantity of advertising its product. It increases
its advertising in order to enhance the sales of its products. Further, it also started
investing in the expensive beverages and coca cola has improved its position after the
collaboration with Monster Beverage Corporation.
c) Became more efficient: Coca cola increase its effectiveness and economic flexibility by
investing more in marketing of its products and services. It also enhances its productivity
by reducing the costs of products. Thus, its efficiency is increased by the help of
marketing of its products (Konečný & Zinecker, 2015).
d) Company simplification: According to consumer tastes, it innovate the supply and chain
management. Coca cola simply itself by keeping an eye on the areas where it could be
more suitable to explore and it could be beneficial for the company. It enhances the
experience of customers by creating a fun fulfilling environment and growth in
workplaces.
e) Core business model: Coca cola Company always tried to be a fresh and cool beverage
brand. As, it has more than 500 brands that includes juice drinks, sparkling beverages,

sport drinks etc. Among these brands, there are around 20 brands which help in
generating more than billion dollars yearly. The core business model of coca cola can be
acquired by the enhancement in bottling partners, thus it increase the performance and
distribution systems.
These are some of the strategic actions by which product lines with coca cola can be identified
Coca cola have set some strategies by which the goals and requirements can be met. So, there are
some brands which are used by coca cola that can setup their product lines.
Models used by Coca cola Company:
Boston matrix is used by coca cola to maintain their portfolio or to plan their portfolio. It is used
to analyze the products which are sold by manufacturers. It contains all the growths, annual sales
etc.
Figure 1: Boston matrix
Source: (Hegde, 2019)
It is a qualitative model which emphasized on business units and assumes high rates of profit
with high market shares. The y-axis represents annual growth and x-axis represents market share
of coca cola Company in competitive market (Hegde, 2019).

BCG matrix classifies business units or products in four classes such as:
a) Stars: Stars represents higher growth products along with high market share. Thums Up is
a product which lies in star category and captures large customer base. In this category,
coca cola requires heavy investment to maintain its growth.
b) Question mark: It represents high business growth along with low market share. This
category contains the increment of share along with required financial sources as they
cannot generate large amount of cash. Fanta is in question mark category as Company
has to decide whether it can take a place in growth or not.
c) Cash cows: It operates with short business growing rate and high market share. Limca is
a product of coca cola which is in this category which is very famous in between the
consumers but having a low profit.
d) Dogs: Dog products are very less profitable with a low market share. It contains the
products which are very hard to sell. Diet coke is a product which comes in this category
(Klimchuk & Krasovec, 2013).
2. Pick two lines and contrast their unique product branding explaining how coca cola
have segmented the market and positioned those brands from market research.
Product line Primary branding Secondary branding
Fanta Its primary branding includes
colorful advertisement
This includes the
advertisement of each Fanta
flavor by a group of female
models.
Sprite Primarily it is being advertised
by basketball players.
Under the slogan “Grant hill
drink sprite” it is being
advertised for a long span of
time.
Product branding creates a platform between customer choices and manufacturer in which the
designing, logo of products are displayed.
Unique product branding contains the unique images of product that helps in convincing the
customer/consumer so that they can have an option to select their choice of product. It helps the
product to be uniquely identified based on their branding options. Good branding makes a
product to be unique. There are some operations which branding includes like styling, strategies,
website etc (David & David, 2013).

Figure 2: Branding strategies
Source: (Mercy Onun, 2018)
Mainly, there are six ways for branding:
a) Personal branding: This type of branding is done by the help of famous personalities like
actors, politicians etc. It is quite easy for famous personalities to advertise things that can
reflect a good image in front of public.
b) Product branding: It identifies a particular product among many products. Every product
has a different logo and color shows their branding styles.
c) Geographical branding: This type of branding is related to branding of any product at a
particular place. Usually this branding is used in tourism because different products brand
at different locations.
d) Corporate branding: This branding is used to maintain the reputation in corporate world.
It cut out the responsibilities, corporate culture etc. A wrong decision can lead a
corporation into an adverse effect.
e) Co-branding: It associates two or more companies with their particular products or the
services they offered. It also shows the marketing partnership that develops between two
or more companies or brands.

f) Retail branding: The interest of consumers can be increased by this type of branding. To
brand any product, a company has to pay lot amount of money that ensures the success of
their product sells. A lot of planning is required in this type of branding. Hence, a right
and calculated strategy is required to follow for this branding (Hassan & Craft, 2012).
For non-alcoholic drinkers, coca cola became the favorite beverage and also coca cola has
established best brand development strategy in international markets (as noticed by brand loyalty
members). It has cleared various brand enhancement tests under the banner coca cola. The
policies and techniques for the development of brand have been redesigned to cope up with the
mindset of its customers. Coca cola believes in the following:
a) Acceptability
b) Affordability
c) Availability
Acceptability addresses the accepted products of coca cola by the consumers as it has to take
care of their tastes, interests etc.
Affordability decides the amount or pricing which all the consumers are satisfied with. It helps in
the enhancement of sell when coca cola set the low pricing for its products. The effectiveness of
company can also be increased when pricing are low for the products (Haskel & Westlake,
2018).
Availability is a major factor which is to be fulfilled as it show or display the availability of coca
cola products in market. Because, if a consumer has a need of coca cola and that won’t be
available to him/her then it will directly give a negative impact on the consumer. So, the coca
cola products always present with full availability in market to gain consumers’ belief and to
increase its productivity.
For a particular group of customers, segmentation helps in defining the products which suites
them. Usually, coca cola develops marketing strategies by manufacturing new products instead
of targeting a particular segment. Coca cola use mix marketing strategies that helps to drive its
sales at a hike in competitive marketing environment. Every age group likes the coca cola
because of its taste and quality and diet coke is specially targets to the health conscious people. It
uses competitive strategies that help to stand it in a good position in non-alcohol beverages
(Elmore, 2014). Its strength is the equity of brand, customer loyalty and a vast network for
supplies. It lacks in product diversification as it is quite away in diversified with different
products whose market segments are very large. The main opportunity of coca cola is to maintain
its diversification in the food and especially health business as that would definitely add up some
offerings to the customers. It has to improve its supply chain management as the transportation
costs are getting very higher so it has to control over it. The main business of coca cola is
dependent on transportation and distribution of products. Coca cola have a single threat that is
from water. As, with climate conditions, it has to suffer with the amount of water as there are

many countries which are suffering from the scarcity of water. Coca cola has to face a number of
difficulties if water is limited. Also, it has some indirect competitors that give a different taste to
consumer in beverage market.
This company has the major portfolio in whole beverage trade with about 3300 goods. Also, it
spreads the business in about 200 countries. There are some brands which come in its product
plan i.e. Fanta, Sprite, Limca etc. These are some products which come in the marketing mix of
Company. The pricing of this Company is dependent on the availability of its products and as it
has high product availability so the price is done according to the market segments (Yousaf, et.
al., 2017). Pepsi is the direct opponent of coca cola. So, the rating of coca cola is also based on
the competitors’ pricing or products. The distribution system of coca cola is almost eroded the
small as well as middle competitors in international market. Coca cola has captured even the
rural areas of India. Its advertisement strategies are quite different from other companies in
beverage market. It also adopts some promotional activities so the demand of its products can be
increased.
3. In what ways does the coca cola company brand promote intangibles ideas
Intangible ideas are those which are so easy to understand but hard to relate it. So, the branding
of coca cola reflects in similar way where it promotes its intangible ideas which can be
understandable by everyone but its insights can’t be related by some other person.
There are some strategies which are used by coca cola to promote these ideas:
a) Opened with unique market tested formula: John Pemberton desired to establish a
product which has cola with alcohol and wines. So, for this his formulas are sent by his
nephew Lewis Newman to the pharmacy where people aggregated to drink this. So, this
is how Pemberton got his recipe finally at the end of year according to consumers’ tastes.
Although, the original formula is still a secret and protected in Atlanta. Further, minor
adjustments are done in this cola by the removal of cocaine from it in 1903. The most
important thing in between is that its recipe remains unchanged (Leek & Christodoulides,
2012).
b) Logo with timeless font: The Company decided to keep the logo in Spencerian script as it
would be differentiable from its competitors. So, the standardization of logo held in 1923.
c) Distributed in Proprietary bottle: Coca Cola launched a competition for bottle designing
so that the coca cola could be a different product other than any cola which is also in
identical bottle. Coca cola started to promote their piece of design for bottle as much as
possible with the coke sign as well on it.
d) Retailers are responsible for standard maintenance: Coca cola has decided to give the
responsibility of maintaining the standard to the retailers. As, at first the coke team has
decided to cell cola at 36 degree Fahrenheit so they order their retailers and salesmen that
this cola should not ever be delivered above 40 degrees. So, that the standard can be

maintained to sell the product. This strategy is made to attract the consumers and to take
the attention in international market so that they can be highlighted than their
competitors.
e) Kept fixed consumer price for 70 years: The pricing for any product is also an important
factor to maintain stability in the competitive market. As, almost every organization set
some rules to promote their product like in beginning they vend their product for free but
then they set a higher price after a span of time. Coca cola also set this rule to sell their
product in beginning. As, it started to sell their cola for 5 cents and continued this pricing
till 70 years.
f) Word-of-mouth advertisement: Coca cola adopted a coupon service to expand the
business of coal that results in the enhancement of sale by 10% in at least all the products
of its from 1887 to 1920. Also, the company started to provide some stickers and posters
to their retailers for the distribution in customers. Further, word-of-mouth advertisement
is beneficial for enhancing the sale of coca cola (Rubera & Droge, 2013).
g) Adoption of franchise model: To maintain the syrup rights, coca cola Company has
decided to handover the bottling rights to the syrup for just a dollar as it is also a
marketing strategy of them to expand their business. So, they set up a partnership for the
bottler’s franchise.
Coca cola Company has adopted a strategy to provide refreshment to their consumers in the form
of beverages so they always maintained their quality as well as their pricing. So, that everyone
can afford this cola and it can be a biggest selling product throughout the world.
Branding of products is a key to expand the trading for any company. There are four reasons why
branding for coca cola is so important:
a) Competitive advantage: Branding is important to compete for the resources in market as
it attracts the attention of consumers. If branding includes different exciting offers and
vouchers then it would be a profitable for the Company business. Coca cola branding is
important to expand the business worldwide. So, it is important for coca cola to brand
their products for gaining the advantage in competitive market (Drori, et. al., 2013).
b) Stable asset: If branding is performed with full strategy then the product sell remains
same and even increase with span of time. Assets stability is a most important thing to be
in market for long as coca cola Company brand is been around 120 years in this
competitive market only because of its stable assets.
c) Economic value: The organizational values are split into two categories i.e. tangible and
intangible assets where brands are considered as an intangible asset which has focused
more by coca cola so that they can create an abstract place in market. As, branding is
considered to be a more effective business strategy to enhance the trades. Between 1975
and 2003, the intangible assets have gained a hike from 17% to 80%. So, this means that
intangible ideas what coca cola is using, left a great impact on business to expand it.
Also, the brands are considered to be a prominent asset.

d) Expectations of brand set: Along with the promises fixed on a sheet of paper with some
legal activities, there are also an unspoken contract lies that means if someone said that
they will provide this type of service then they will definitely do what they said. Branding
also rely on this fact i.e. unspoken contract that first coca cola Company brand for their
products and promise to give exciting offers when you buy it. So, they fulfill this promise
by providing all the services what a consumer is intended for (Rahman & Areni, 2014).
This creates a belief in consumers’ mind and they value this belief and they do word-of-mouth
marketing of a particular cola to their known. The fulfilling of promises by coca cola is defines
their success or failure rate at each and every stage. In case if promise broke by Company, then
consumers question it. In this case the brand has to suffer and improve their services.
This essay covers all the marketing strategies of Coca cola Company along with their word-to-
mouth advertisement done by the consumers of coca cola consumers. To gain belief of
consumers Company has to maintain their quality and pricing what is suitable for the consumers.
Branding is the most important strategy used by coca cola to attract the consumers. Branding
comes in intangible ideas which is most used by this Company. This strategy helps to expand the
business of coca cola by securing a place in competitive market. Because, it is quite hard to
maintain a position for a long span time and Coca cola maintains a place for around 120 years in
market by the help of stable assets. So, this essay concludes that branding is a most important
strategy used by coca cola so that their place can be secured and their trading can be increased in
international market.

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