MKT10723: Coca-Cola's Marketing Strategy and Brand Equity Analysis

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the Coca-Cola Company's marketing and branding strategies. It begins with an executive summary and introduction, followed by a background of the brand, discussing its origins and global presence. The report then delves into the effectiveness of Coca-Cola's brand strategy, examining its positioning strategies, brand identity elements, and how these support brand positioning. A significant portion of the report focuses on brand equity, exploring brand awareness, brand association, and brand loyalty. The analysis extends to touchpoints for the target market, evaluating the role of point-of-sale, media usage, and social media. Finally, the report investigates Coca-Cola's brand architecture, specifically its sub-branding strategy, and discusses the rationale behind this approach, providing a detailed understanding of Coca-Cola's marketing success.

RUNNING HEAD: COCA COLA COMPANY
Coca Cola Marketing Strategy
Name of Student:
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Author Note:

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Executive Summary:
Coca cola is one of the largest soft drink companies in the world with its origin at America. The
company is a well-known name throughout the globe, and has established a proper global market
with its effective marketing strategies. The report discussed the various marketing strategies
undertaken by Coca Cola Company that has helped it to reach the height where it is today. It
identifies the company’s strategy of targeting, segmenting and placing their products.

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Table of Contents
Introduction:....................................................................................................................................3
Background of the brand:................................................................................................................3
Effectiveness of the Brand Strategy:...............................................................................................4
Brand Equity:...................................................................................................................................6
Analysing the touch point for the target market:.............................................................................7
Brand Relationship Spectrum:.........................................................................................................8

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Introduction:
Coca cola is one of the largest soft drink company in the world with its origin at America.
The company is a well known name throughout the globe and has established a proper global
market with their effective marketing strategies.
Coca cola is one of the most glaring examples of how a perfect strategy can help in the
total flourishing of the brand (Banutu-Gomez 2014). The present report will analyse the
marketing strategy and the branding strategy of the company in detail.
Background of the brand:
Coca Cola is a reputed name all over the world as a famous beverage industry. the
establishment of the company was done by Dr. John Pemberton, a pharmacist by profession.
Since then the brand has been a household name of beverage and drink for over 200 countries
across the globe. Among all the products sold by the company, the carbonated beverage accounts
for about 78% of their total sales. The company holds a record of having over 300 beverage
products. Apart from the carbonated beverages, the company also has a large portfolio of having
healthy drinks, diet cokes etc. It has also bought some stake from the Monster energy drink brad.
The headquarter of the company at present is at Atlanta. Since 1919, the company has been
operating as a publicly traded one and the stocks have been listed on the NYSE, S&P 500, DJIA
and the S&P 100 indexes. The company had adopted the global marketing as their business

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strategy. However, with the changes n the demands of the market, the company has been at
present incorporating various changes in their products as well as the strategies of marketing.
The proper strategy of targeting enables a company to define the appropriate products for
the variety of kind of customers. Due to the type of products that Coca Cola Company
manufactures and sales, they cannot exhibit a traditional targeting attitude. Thet do not have a
specific target but adapts its marketing strategy by developing new people. However, their taeget
segment can be broadly defined as follows:
1. Age- Coke is a type of beverage that is generally consumed by people of all ages and thus can
be addressed to everyone. However, the major targets are those who are the customers aged
between 12-30 years (Du Plessis 2015). However, there are no other specified type of products
for customer below 12 or above 30, yet the company mainly makes its products with the aim of
reaching mostly t the above specified age range. The company equally targets men and women.
They target a mobile generation like that of at present and a busy life style.
Effectiveness of the Brand Strategy:
The company has strategically positioned itself to get a considerable amount of advantage
in the market of soft drinks. The company makes use of competitive positioning strategy in order
to have an advantage from their competitors and in the non-alcoholic beverage market. The
company produces a range of beverages that suits different age, lifecycle, stage as well as
occasions. It includes various types of juices and juice drinks, carbonated beverage, bottled
water, sports drinks and energy drinks. The brand has accurately embraced the strategy of think
global and acting local. Thus, it has focussed mainly on keeping the same core product and
adopting according to the local needs. In order to have an equal image all over the world the

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company makes use of strategic positioning. This has proved itself to be a success since the
brand, today is perceived as a part of daily life everywhere. After defining their market segment
the Coca Cola company clearly developed a picture of a particular targeted segment and
accordingly defined their products (Melton, Damron and Vernon 2017.). The company through
their positioning strategy emphasise on their distinct and unique characteristics in relation with
the brands that are their main competitors. This helps the company in projecting their
individuality. In associating their products with the values of the customers and by highlighting
the knowledge about the products the company also builds upon their social responsibility. Such
positioning strategies made the customers associate this brand with a variety of emotion. Thus,
with the mentioning of the name of the brand Coca Cola the first thing that comes in mind is
entertainment and fun.
Brand identity is generally referred to those visible elements of a brand such as the
design, logo, colour etc that identifies a brand and distinguishes it with its competitors (Zamani,
sAbas and Amin 2016). The brand of coca cola, since it mainly targets the youths, wanted to
make themselves identified as a symbol of fun and refreshment. It is one of the most influential
brands in the world the logo of the brand was designed by Frank M. Robinson and most of the
customers associate this logo as refreshing. The colour red in the logo has been identified as a
symbol of energy and passion. The logo is thus, the heart of the brand identity for Coca Cola.
The design and particularly the shape of the bottle have played a great role in creating an identity
of the brad. The bottle with nothing written on it, just the logo embalmed, is a symbol of their
global identity (White and Griffith 2017).

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Brand Equity:
Aaker and McLoughlin have defined the term brand equity as “the added value endowed
on products and services which may be reflected in the way consumers think, feel and act with
respect to the brand, as well as in the prices, market share and profitability the brand
commands.” With the idea of brand equity are associated three main components namely the
brand awareness, the brand association and the brand loyalty. The company of Coca Cola uses
these components effectively in the following way for leveraging a competitive advantage:
Brand Awareness- the name of coca cola has become a daily life household name at present. It is
recognised by more or less all sections of consumers around the globe. The company has been
operating in almost all of the countries excepting in North Korea and Cuba (Sands 2013.). The
product portfolio of the brand contains over 3500 products. In order to enhance the awareness
among the consumers, the company spends a considerable amount of money on advertising.
Because of their targeting of the young generation, they have the advertisement strategy of
promoting the awareness through social media mainly. Coca Cola is among those rare companies
that spend more on advertisement and marketing than its products (McAlister and Ferrell 2012.).
The company has also been successful in creating brand awareness through their authenticity-
curved bottle, red and white brands. The company has also incorporated itself in the participation
and sponsorship of a number of associations and events in order to become the most well known
brand.
Brand Association- brand association is referred to the strategy of creating “anything that is
connected with the customer’s memory about the brand.” These associations are generally
formed on the basis of the perceptions about quality and the interaction with the organisation or
its employees. The strategic stance of the company to associate the brand with refreshment ad

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entertainment has been one of their marvellous techniques of addressing the emotions of the
consumers. Through their taglines like “Hello Happiness” or “open up happiness”, the company
has been successful in creating memories and kindling up emotions through their adverts like the
homecomings during holidays or promoting religious tolerances (Cui 2015).
Brand Loyalty: the memories that the company spreads based on the emotions help in connecting
the people through the emotions of festivity, reunion etc, that makes them a loyal customer of the
brand who will not mind paying higher prices.
Analysing the touch point for the target market:
The main goal of the Coca Cola Company is to refresh their customers from the daily
hustle and bustle of their daily activities with their product of highest quality. Thus, the main
target segment of the company is of the age range of 12-30, the youth, to be more precise. It is
important for any company to establish a definite touch point in order to enhance the
communication with the customers. This communication is aimed at understanding the market
preferences and the demands of the customers from the rand. Moreover, such communications
enhances the engagement of the customers that in turn has a positive effect on the brand loyalty.
Among the various types of touch points, the Coca Cola Company mainly uses the following:
1. The POS: the Point Of sale is essential for any company in order to set up a effective
communication and influence the buying decision of the customers. Since this target market of
Coca Cola Company is the young generation and mainly stays outside the house for the majority
of the day, they have the most probability of going to the store and buying the required products
like this. This is where a company would place their point of Sale in order to focus on the
“theatralisation” inside the store, which allows the company to take the customers to their own

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universe (Rey-López and Gonzalez 2019). This helps the customers to see the brand image and
feel the values of the same. The implementation of the campaign of “Share a Coke” by coca cola
was a successful technique of this theatralisation at the point of sale. This implementation was
done in order to grow the brand’s KPI and the market share in a shrinking market of carbonated
beverages where the customers were shifting their preferences towards energy drinks or fruit
juices.
2. Media usage- another important touch point for Coca Cola was their utilisation of the media
parameters for the recruiting of their new customers. Each launch of the company has the major
possibility of having its own TV advertisements or their parts in the newspapers. Huge budget is
paid for the launching ceremonies (Cheptegei and Yabs 2016).
3. Social media- social media plays an increasingly important role in influencing the buying
decisions of the consumers (Kretchmer 2014.). The coca cola company makes use of use of the
social media in order to connect with the young generations mainly through social media since
these are the widest used platforms of this generation.
Brand Relationship Spectrum:
Aaker & Joachimsthaler in their analysis of brand relationship spectrum have identified
that the nature of creating portfolios for a brand and their marketing strategies are getting more
complex day by day in order to meet the demands of the markets. The companies have shifted
particularly towards strategic developments (Ware 2014). The authors have also showed how the
relationship and the structures that the brands in present days exhibits a set of challenges in the
path of building distinguishable and recognisable brands. The brand relationship spectrum, as put

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forward by them is a brand architecture tool that “establishes a concrete, systematic approach to
branding.”
Among the four strategies pointed out by Aaker & Joachimsthaler, namely the House of
Brand, Endorsed Brand, Sub brands and Branded House, the coca cola company has adapted the
strategy of the sub branding. The portfolios or the different products with different names come
under the branding of Coca Cola. The sub brands of the company are explicitly connected with
the main brand of Coca Cola. Coca cola has launched their Coke Zero as their sub brand
(Varadarajan and Clark 2014). Then they turned the labelling o Coca Cola No Sugar in order to
connect the product with their brand.
The sub strategy used by the brand is that of a Master brand architect. The master brand
coca cola is the main driver for all its products. this sub branding with having a master brand at
the top helps the company in catering to the definite needs of the target segment. The low diet or
low sugar cokes have been the sub product that caters to a more health conscious segment.

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Reference List:
Banutu-Gomez, M.B., 2014. Coca-Cola: International business strategy for globalization. The
Business & Management Review, 3(1), p.155.
Cheptegei, D.K. and Yabs, J., 2016. Foreign market entry strategies used by multinational
corporations in Kenya: A case of Coca Cola Kenya Ltd. European Journal of Business and
Strategic Management, 1(2), pp.71-85.
Cui, R., 2015. A review of nostalgic marketing. Journal of Service Science and Management,
8(01), p.125.
Du Plessis, C., 2015. Brand storytelling: the case of Coca-Cola's journey corporate website.
Hassan, D.N., Amos, A.A. and Abubakar, O.A., 2014. An evaluation of marketing strategies
undertaken by Coca Cola Company as a multinational corporation in Nigeria. Journal of
Business and Management, 3(2), pp.5-10.
Kretchmer, S.B., 2014. Advertainment: The evolution of product placement as a mass media
marketing strategy. Journal of Promotion Management, 10(1-2), pp.37-54.
McAlister, D.T. and Ferrell, L., 2012. The role of strategic philanthropy in marketing strategy.
European Journal of Marketing.
Melton, A., Damron, T. and Vernon, J., 2017. A Marketing Strategy from Corporate Social
Responsibility: Lessons from Unilever and Coca-Cola Enterprises.

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Rey-López, J.P. and Gonzalez, C.A., 2019. Research partnerships between Coca-Cola and health
organizations in Spain. European journal of public health, 29(5), pp.810-815.
Sands, S., 2013. Can you standardize international marketing strategy?. Journal of the Academy
of Marketing Science, 7(1-2), pp.117-134.
Varadarajan, P.R. and Clark, T., 2014. Delineating the scope of corporate, business, and
marketing strategy. Journal of Business Research, 31(2-3), pp.93-105.
Ware, E.O., 2014. Investigate the Benefit Practice of Total Quality Management as Competitive
Advantage in Corporate Institution: A Case Study of Cocoa-Cola Bottling Company Ghana Ltd.
Research Journal of Finance and Accounting, 5(23), pp.97-99.
White, D.S. and Griffith, D.A., 2017. Combining corporate and marketing strategy for global
competitiveness. Marketing Intelligence & Planning.
Zamani, H., Abas, A. and Amin, M.K.M., 2016. Eye tracking application on emotion analysis for
marketing strategy. Journal of Telecommunication, Electronic and Computer Engineering
(JTEC), 8(11), pp.87-91.