Consumer Behaviour and Coca-Cola: Emotional Attachment Analysis

This case study provides an overview of Coca-Cola's consumer behavior strategies, focusing on their target market, the role of motivation and learning in consumer purchase decisions, and the company's success in achieving emotional attachment with its audience. It highlights Coca-Cola's marketing campaigns, such as "Share a Coke" and "Taste the Feeling," and their efforts to offer sugar-free options. The study also offers marketing recommendations, including leveraging social media and emotional branding, to further increase emotional engagement and brand loyalty. The analysis emphasizes the importance of understanding customer needs and incorporating customer feedback to enhance brand perception and drive sales. Desklib offers a variety of solved assignments and past papers for students.

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Consumer Behaviour
Case of Coca-Cola Company
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An overview of the company, including a description of the target market(s) they focus
on.
Coca-Cola has grown on to achieve an international presence. With its headquarters at
Atlanta, Georgia, the company provides over 500 brands. Today, Coca-Cola sells to
customers found in more than 200 countries around the world (Coca-Cola 2018).
Figure 1: Coco-Cola global presence
Source: (Coca-Cola cola 2018)
Coca-Cola indicates on its website that out of 500 brands, it offers 19 brands with
either low levels or no sugar (Coca-Cola 2018). Coca-Cola ensures that the target customers
learn how to moderate the rate at which they consume added sugar. Some of the brands that
have been added to the original Coca-Cola drinks include Zico coconut water, vitaminwater,
Sprite, smartwater, simply juices, Powerade sports drinks, Fanta, Dasani waters, and among
others (Coca-Cola 2018). Coca-Cola Ireland brand offers a wide range of four colas, still
drinks, sports drinks, juice drinks, and waters. The company has continued to target
audiences across all age groups and across the world using reduced or no-sugar and no
calories beverages.

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Figure 2: A range of Coca-Cola brands sold in Ireland. Source:
(http://www.coca-cola.ie/drinks)
The Role of both Motivation and Learning Purchase Decision Making Process
Every rational consumer goes through the process of making decisions before and
after making transaction. Chakraborty (2017) explains that consumer behaviour explains the
journey that a consumer goes through before and after buying products or services.
Understanding the way consumers make decisions is not only important to companies but
also how marketers align their marketing strategies.

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Figure 3: Consumer decision making process
Many brands try to enhance emotional connection with their targeted customers.
Marketers do this with the understanding that emotional connection with their customers
strengthens the loyalty as well as involvement of their customers (Durmaz 2014). According
to figure 3 above, consumers are always influenced by several factors. All these can be
grouped into social, cultural, psychological, economic, and demographic. Lichev (2017)
supports this perspective and says that consumers condition and determine their behaviours
through certain factors.
Motivation and learning are key elements that foster emotional development and
involvement among customers. A motivation refers to something that begins within ourselves
at the time when we seek to achieve what we want. Jadhav, Vyas and Manekar (2018)
explain that motivation levels determine how consumers formulate their behaviours before
and after making any purchase. Every person has different degrees of biological, social, or
physiological needs. Durmaz (2014) goes ahead to explain that recognition of a need forms

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the starting point of a consumer purchase process. Hence, a need could represent something
important that a customer lacks and would like to have. Durmaz applies Maslow’s theory of
motivation (physiological, safety, belonging, esteem, and self-actualization) to explain that
human needs occur in a hierarchical manner. When a consumer satisfies one urgent need, it
becomes easier to a higher-level need. For example, in the first stage of a purchase process, a
customer might be motivated by the need to purchase a drink that is sugar free. The next
stage will involve using different media o search for information to assist a customer evaluate
the best drink among the available alternatives. A customer might purchase Diet Coke brand
sold by Coca-Cola against other brands to satisfy the need of sugar free drink.
Learning explains changes in people’s behaviour determined by experience.
Depending on a level of circumstance, customers condition their perceptions based on
experience (Attri and Jain 2018). Attri and Jain posit that it is because of this that formulates
an individual’s framework as well as expectations where to place and organise any new
stimuli. Similarly, Lichev (2017) explains that customers learn from their earlier experiences.
Consequently, they seek to keep consistency and balance by interpreting and relating to new
stimuli through learned or past stimuli. The practical importance of learning theory of
organisation is the capability to create customer demand through motivational cues, strong
drives. Chakraborty (2017) argues that customers have a tendency of transferring their loyalty
towards brands they are familiar with and already know than the dissimilar ones. During the
information search, customers are likely to remember first brands they understand and know
well than those they do not know. Similarly, during the evaluation of alternatives process,
customers are likely to select brands from companies they know and are aware about.

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Coca-Cola current success in achieving an emotional attachment with its target
audience
Coca-Cola has succeeded in using advertising as well as branding to achieve a strong
emotional attachment with its target audiences (the young, youths, and old). Coca-Cola
understands that a majority of its customers whether young, youth, or old, have an urgent
need of satisfying their physiological needs. Customers recognize the need for sugar free
drinks and low in calories. Customers located across the globe in different markets depend on
motivation and learning to strengthen their levels of involvement and emotion with Coca-
Cola beverages.
Coca-Cola implements different marketing campaigns that help attach the value of a
specific brand to things that customers consider important. Coca-Cola designs programs that
seek to provoke through personal dialogue concerning their needs and persuasive feelings.
Such strategies have made it possible for the company to win the hearts of many customers in
dynamic markets where there are other larger competitors such as Pepsi-Co and private
labels. Coca-Cola- allows customers to make their own buying decisions according to how
the feel about its products. In the recent past, the company design emotional campaign such
as “share a coke”, “Open Happiness”, “Life Begins Here”, and most recent “Taste the
Feeling”.

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Figure 4: Coca-Cola brands for emotional marketing. Source (Hepburn n.d)
Figure 5: Coca-Cola “Hug Me” campaign. Source (Coca-Cola 2016)
Coca-Cola uses above tactics of “Share a feeling” and “zero sugar” to motivate a need
among customers that want to reduce the level to consuming natural sugar. According to
Hepburn (2016), the company has also taken active role of encouraging more target
customers including those that love Coca-Cola Classic, to select no sugar option. The

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company has continued to invest in development of new brands that arouses motivation
among customers to satisfy their need for healthy and sugar free products. As indicated in
figure 4 above, the company considered removing its iconic logos from cans and packaging it
using unique names and emotional signs.
The personalisation it itself was found to have become attractive to a majority of
customers. Besides, while the company has used characters, cartoons, and other things to
appeal to the emotions of children, the company has since changed to other branding names
such as one presented in figure above and “Share a Coke” to target a broader demographic
such as adults, young adults, and children. Bachai (2015) explains that Coca-Cola has
succeeded in personalizing its bottles to appeal to a larger audience that appreciates brand
uniqueness. The company adopted the new way to increase volume of sales. The company
uses this approach to forge a one-to-one connection with customers when it displays the
names of people such as “James” or “Sophie”.
Coca-Cola also applies design to create memorable experiences among its customers.
Gilliland (2017) maintain that it is not only personalised aspects that make customers develop
experiences. Coca-Cola out-of-home advertising involves the use of headlines or weather-
related imagery to reflect the surrounding context. Ding this helps creates an ever-changing
visual that represents the brand of Coca-Cola.

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Figure 6: Real-time effect for experience among customers. Source (Gilland 2017)
Marketing Recommendations for the Brand to Increase the Emotional Attachment
Coca-Cola marketing manager could start utilizing different social media platforms to
increase emotional engagement with a wider demographic of its target customers. Even
though the company has accounts on social media including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube,
LinkedIn, and Instagram, among others, it is critical for Coca-Cola to consider incorporating
them into the daily life of customers. The target group should especially be the current digital
generation. According to the recent report by Wang, Yeh, Yen and Sandoya (2016), the
findings from a survey of teens shows that 92% now go online on a daily basis while 71%
depend on more than one social networking platform to interact with their friends. Despite a
smaller number of adults that depend on social networking sites (27%), the findings showed
that this number is likely to increase by 2025. All these social media platforms have been
found to form an integral part of people’s life. The company could contract an independent
search engine optimization agency to create and share content as well as update content.
The initiative to adopt social media might make a majority of the teens and older
customers to form positive attachments with their digital entities and transform them into
self-concept. For example, the company will start to develop some of the emotional

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attachments like psychological effective bond with its target customers. Pentina, Guilloux
and Micu (2018) argue that people should always do business with the people but not
businesses, ideas, or brands. However, he mentions one of such exception as people doing
business with companies they know they have personality.
Second, Coca-Cola management should also use emotional branding strategies to
trigger emotional responses among customers. Consequently, this strategy will motivate
customers to recognize the need to purchase beverages. Shaw (2017) explains that a brand is
what separates a company from the masses. It involves having a brand image and associated
messages that trigger customers to engage and built their loyal towards products.
Management should consider prioritizing its customers. Management should spend time to
understand what pains customers when they try to purchase products (Rossiter and Bellman
2012). One way of doing this could involve engaging with customers to execute sustainable
projects. Doing this will ensure that the company develops projects that give people a chance
to share their stories regarding some of the new sustainability efforts the company to make
differences in communities.
The company should also walk with customers in changing their healthy living and
empowering women. Through its corporate social responsibility department, the company
should design programs such as Coke and the World”, “achieve you dream”, or “Walking
with Coke”. The new personal community and well-being programs will attract a majority of
customers to participate in empowerment and healthy living programs.
Management should tap into online survey platforms such as Mail Chimp, survey
Monkey, or constant contact. The strategy will ensure that management asks and understand
the thoughts of customers. In most cases, companies fail to listen to their customers. Torres
(2015) explains that businesses that have taken initiatives to listen to their customers

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constantly and responding to information, has helped them record increased sales volume.
The company should continue to rely on these three platforms to collect different sentiments
from customers. For example, the company could star by asking a number of questions. The
responses provided my customers will provide the company with an opportunity to
understand the pains that customer’s o through. Consequently, management will understand
the best way to respond to every question. Toker-Yildiz, et al (2017) reiterates that keeping a
close eye to customers present the best opportunity for a company to demonstrate that it
cares. Furthermore, the process of solving problems by listening to customers might help
elevate different brands in the minds of customers.

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References
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