Marketing Essentials: Coca-Cola's Marketing Strategies

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MARKETING ESSENTIALS
Coca-Cola
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Table of Contents
Introduction...................................................................................................................... 2
LO 1 Characteristics Of Marketing And Its Link With Other Units....................................2
P1/ M1 Vital Aspects of Marketing................................................................................2
P2/ M2 Correlation of Marketing with Other Departments............................................2
LO2 Marketing Mix and Tactics........................................................................................2
P3 Application of 7Ps of Marketing Mix........................................................................2
COCA-COLA VS PEPSICO.........................................................................................2
Business Tactics...........................................................................................................2
Conclusion....................................................................................................................... 2
References.......................................................................................................................2
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Introduction
The assignment is aimed to discuss various principles of marketing, its utility and
characteristics in the organization. The function of marketing in a firm or entity is very
critical as it aids the company to enhance the sales performance and earning capability
of any organization. The subsequent sections in the report embrace the study on
departmental coordination and its correlation to the functioning of the marketing
departments. The marketing mix is also an excellent tool to design and evaluate the
marketing strategies of the company with respect to the business environment (Kotler,
2012).
To study marketing concepts in the report, the chosen organization is Coca-Cola which
is a leading manufacturer and seller of carbonated soft drinks in many variants and
categories. The company was ranked third most valuable brand after Apple and Google
in the year of 2015 and was positioned at number 87 in the fortune500 global
companies in 2018. The rationale for choosing the organization is its continued
dominance in the global market even after ups and downs in the company’s brand
value, which has immensely relied on its marketing campaign for phenomenal sales
figures (Coca-Cola, 2019).
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LO 1 Characteristics Of Marketing And Its Link With Other Units
P1/ M1 Vital Aspects of Marketing
The primary goals of the marketing simply revolve around what the consumer desires,
its necessities and the market trends of buying similar products. For this, the marketing
executive is responsible for the management of all the duties which generally reflect
under the marketing division. Further, it is equally necessary that the tasks and action
plan designed by the marketing team is in line and complete coherence with the overall
vision of the organization. The following are the list of different responsibilities which a
marketing team is delegated with reference to the chosen organization (Achrol and
Kotler, 2012).
A. Organizing a Unique Marketing Campaign
Coca-Cola is the world’s largest beverage company having a presence in all the
5 regions of the world and operating in 200+ countries. Thus it is evident that to
ensure the success of such a huge variety of products (3500 types of drinks), the
promotional campaigns have to be designed exclusively to the demography,
topography and diversity of culture (Gillespie and Riddle, 2015).
B. Vigorous Market Survey & Research
Most of the times, the product is not made from a new idea but to incorporate the
condition based need of the consumer market. For example, for the working
section of the society, the possibility of selling energy drink was found out by
detailed market surveys, data analysis, research from the market, directly
reflecting the opinions of customers.
C. Financial analysis and Grading of Products
The role of marketing is far more diverse than only advertising and promotional
campaigns. Before and after the launching of products, a lot of events are
organized to study the market perception, scope of improvement and collection
of data whether the product has the potential for the business viability in the
market or not. For instance, the green tea coke which was launched at the time
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of increasing trend of health consciousness was quickly discontinued after the
marketing team got poor reception for the drink (Tripodi, 2011).
.
D. Brand Value Management
As mentioned earlier, the duty of the marketing department doesn't finish after
the introduction of the product in the market. Sales trends, reactions on digital
media are scrutinized, analyzed, recorded and consumer grievances are solved
at once. For instance, after the debacle of the company's soft drink health
standards, the company has heavily invested in quality maintenance as well as
the promotion of their products having quality in the market (Feng at al. 2015).
E. Package Design, Tagline and Brand
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It refers to the creative graphic designing of the packaging of the products to
entice aesthetic appeal to the customers, placing taglines and branding to
differentiate the product among similar products.
F. Risk engagement
Taking risks is one of the essential roles of the marketing due to the fact it
involves the advice based on the uncertainty to the manufacturing team for the
production of an item which may or may not be successful in the market. The risk
is attributed to the variations in the purchasing trends of the consumer (Dwyer
and Tanner, 2012).
P2/ M2 Correlation of Marketing with Other Departments
The marketing functions are keenly concerned with various phases of the product life
cycle and for the same reason are linked with processes of departments other than
marketing. The duties of the marketing department aid the fulfilment of other
departmental outcomes in line with the overall objectives. The interrelation of marketing
with other functions is given below.
 HIRING (HR)
To recruit the best and creative heads in the marketing team, the marketing
manager is generally delegated to participate in the recruitment processes
(generally interview) for the positions concerned in the marketing department.
The marketing manager is required to assess the candidates on the basis of
marketing skills and dynamic aptitude in compliance with the HR policies of the
company.
 RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
Continuous evolving needs and desires of the customer directly affect the
company's policies for new products. Thus the success of the R&D development
is heavily dependent on the market inputs, which is to be performed by the
marketing team. Reliable data and trends assist the R&D team to design a
product with more potential to attract the consumer base (Kotler, 2012).
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 PRODUCTION
Since the marketing is involved in the forecasts and prediction of future trends
based on the market research, it has to closely coordinate with operations
division to inform them about the potential surge or slump in demand to
accommodate the delivery of the products in a timely fashion. Further quality
standards are to be maintained in accordance with customer perception and
market regulations.
 SUPPLY CHAIN
The marketing department is also responsible for providing input to packaging,
distribution strategies in accordance with customer beliefs. The inventory
management can also be strategized with discussion from the marketing team in
order to get the locational advantage for high pitch orders (Aghdaie and
Alimardani, 2015).
 FINANCIAL / ACCOUNTS DEPT.
Finance department synchronizes with the marketing department on regular
intervals for monitoring the sales target, income generation, allocation of funds
for future promotional and marketing events in order to reap more financial
profits. The decisions made for the budgetary expenditure is kept in check by the
finance department to sustain the business viability without compromising the
market share for a variety of the products of the company.
 INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Digital marketing is contributing to a very large portion of the total marketing
strategies. The company can reach directly to the customers through social
media, video platforms, blogs, websites etc. The large scale digital marketing is
not possible without consultation of IT team which will assist in creating the
online infrastructure of the company’s marketing activities. The role of e-
commerce is rising exponentially for the business performance of organizations
and thus, flawless and smooth payment solutions are to be designed by IT
engineers of the company to increase the product sales (Erragcha and
Romdhane, 2014).
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LO2 Marketing Mix and Tactics
P3 Application of 7Ps of Marketing Mix
Marketing Mix can be defined as a set of marketing parameters which any organization
unites and control in order to achieve the preferred response in the segmented market.
Thus it serves as a vital tool to incorporate all the elements in the marketing strategy
which have the potential to influence the product’s performance in the market.
The controlled parameters inferred in the definition are commonly termed as 7Ps in the
marketing mix (Kotler, 2012).
COCA-COLA VS PEPSICO
Coca- Cola, as well as PepsiCo both, have a reputation of being a leading soft drinks
company run by customer-driven strategies, operating in the worldwide markets. One of
the factors which attribute to the success of these organizations can be related to their
effective implementation of the marketing mix in their practices. Given below illustrates
the comparison of both the companies with reference to the 7Ps of the marketing mix
(Išoraitė, 2016).
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Product: The product designed should fulfil the demands as well as the needs of the
customer. In addition to that, every product has a specified life cycle comprising of
growth, maturity and then the recession. The decline stage should be followed by
effective strategies by marketing to increase sales.
COCA-COLA PEPSICO
Coca-Cola is the world's largest
beverage company having more than
3500 products distributed into
categories of diet, fruit juice, water, tea,
coffees, energy drinks etc.
It is the second largest company in the
industry. The products are diversified in
two broad categories of soft drinks and
food items (Snacks)
Promotion: The promotion includes all the events which are contributing to the
marketing of a particular product such as ads, social media videos, events, seminars,
screenings, conferences etc. The main aim of the promotion is to make the customer
aware of the product and appeal towards buying it. Various factors govern the
promotion like budget, medium, segment market etc. (Khan, 2014).
COCA-COLA PEPSICO
The company focuses on the use of
value-based advertising to correlate
with the lifestyle of the customer. It also
uses CSR to appeal social interest in
its product.
One of the main features of
promotional campaigns of the company
is that it primarily targets young
population with the help of popular
celebrities as the brand ambassadors.
Process: The processes refer to the ways or methods adopted in the marketing
strategies of the product. Coca-Cola has collaborated with renowned national and
international restaurants and cafes to offer its products as a priority in the soft drinks
category. While at the same time, PepsiCo is found to have relied on the local retail
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stores and its national distributors for penetration of the local markets. In addition,
PepsiCo follows creative advertising policy process in which the product is presented in
a unique way for customer perception (Išoraitė, 2016).
People: Consumer from all markets, employees, stakeholders, management personnel,
the board of members, leaders, CEOs all constitute as the people for an organization.
Apart from the aforementioned, persons indirectly related to the company’s operations
such as distributors, retailers, suppliers can be also considered as the people who
signify the brand of the company.
COCA-COLA PEPSICO
The total number of employees in the
company is nearly 62,600 worldwide.
The number of workforce in the
organization is nearly 2,67,600.
Physical Environment: Anything which covers the physical space in corresponding to
the organization's business can be termed as space. Even though it may be less
important in the product point of view but has a huge significance from the marketing
perspective. Physical Environment comprises of all the substantial resources,
infrastructure arrangements, and work stations as well as user-related interfaces within
an organization (Freeman et al. 2014).
COCA-COLA PEPSICO
As the reputation of the number one
brand, the products by the company
are available all over the world. The
distribution channel of the organization
uses the FMCG pattern for effective
supply of the products in the market.
In PepsiCo, the distribution mechanism
is followed in order from company to
distributor to small retailers and then
the target consumers. Another method
followed is that company directly sells
to the bulk buyers which then
commercially sell it to the customers.
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Thus the application of the marketing mix strategies underlines the importance of
marketing efforts focusing on people, product, price, promotion, process, physical
evidence and places (Kotler, 2012).
Business Tactics
The Coca-Cola Company applies digital promotion as well as marketing mix tactics so
as to attain business objectives. These strategies have been proved fruitful for the
profitability of the company as the beverage industry is growing at a huge rate and thus
both the strategies complement each other (Baker, 2016).
These strategies address all the aspects of business diversity such as opportunities,
market trends, pricing, promotional campaigns etc. Along with it, the company provides
a rich set of variety to customers for the soft drinks for the same set of prices which
helps in the gaining of customer satisfaction and the potential of consumer retention
(Banutu-Gomez, 2012).
ANSOFF MATRIX
To highlight the various alternatives to the growth prospects for the company, the
method is effectively used. Ansoff matrix analysis considers the company’s existing
products and assessing various possibilities for business escalation (Gillespie and
Riddle, 2015).
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