Marketing Concept Coca-Cola

This is assignment will require to explain the underlying principles behind the main marketing theories, it will also require an in-depth application, analysis and evaluation of a good or service that is currently available both in the UK market and in the international market. The Product that will be analyses within the assignment is The Coca-Cola Company (CCC). “Business idea or philosophy based on the importance of profit, consumer satisfaction and the welfare of the general public. ”  The Coca-Cola Company is one the biggest successful soft drink company that offers 3,500 various diverse products to over 200 countries worldwide. The company originated in 1889 by pharmacist Dr John Pemberton. Dr Pemberton carried out a jug of Coca Cola syrup at his Jacob Pharmacy in Atlanta USA.

Marketing Mix

Marketing mix can be defined as the combination of elements in an organisation’s offering the market; ‘offerings’ being either products or service. These elements were identified as Product, Price, Place and Promotion in early versions of the mix. As result, they are known as the Four Ps. The marketing mix combines many factors, but consumers view marketing effort in more tangible terms of the product. It is important for marketers to recognise that much of the ‘want-satisfying’ nature of the product is derived from consumers perceptions. The true nature of the product is how the consumer perceives it, and not what the company would like it to be. CCC product first started in 1886, when they were originally made as soda fountain drink. The company has now expanded over to 3,500 diverse product (see picture above). They offer a wide range product form soft drinks to tea drinks to bottle water.

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The typical famous packaging of red and white CCC products is a world recognised. The coca cola company is the most sold soft drink across worldwide. Its not only sold business to business (b2b) such as sold in restaurants, pubs and convenience stores but also sold business to consumer (b2c) such as supermarkets, vending machines and other service shops. Price is a potent element of the marketing mix because of its direct impact on customers, the company and the economy. To the consumer, price is a major indication of quality and an important factor in the decision making process.

For CCC, the price at which the product is sold represents the means of recouping cost and making profit. There are various ways to price coca cola product, depending on the retailer. Supermarkets may put coca cola on promotion one week and then Pepsi the following, as they always like to stay one step ahead of their competition. It is a way to keep consumers on their toes. There is no set price for CCC, but usually the prices are based on growing rates.  Place concerns activities need to move the product from the seller to the buyer and its origin is in the word ‘placement’.

The coca cola company sell their various products over numerous countries worldwide. They have more brand products than Pepsi, Tango RC Cola put together. Although coca cola produces the product, they cannot be held responsible how the products are distributed across the countries. They can only rely on the suppliers following the strict guidelines set out by coca cola. Promotion is perhaps the element of the marketing mix that is most subject to variation. For some product it may play a minimal role, but, for other, marketing strategy may be almost entirely based on promotion.

In consumer markets, promotion often has the highest budget allocation of all mix elements. For this reason it receives much attention as a marketing function. CCC promotional strategies are to make the consumers think they have control over what they are drinking and accomplishing there needs of thirst. On each bottle, coca cola encourages consumers to go to their website to learn more about hydration, sweeteners and taste. In order to boost consumer usage, CCC have taken their product to foreign markets and increased their profit margin.

This was also done as they had home market competitors such as Pepsi, going international will make there brand more recognisable. CCC believes in forceful advertisements, branding and market segmentation has been a big accomplishment to CCC. Since the early 70’s they have always exposed themselves as fun, loving, playful brand to have an international appeal. In 1887 Coupon were first made to promote Coca-cola . 125 years of sharing happiness Customer Relationship Management CCC cannot succeed or grow unless they can serve their customers with a better value proposition than the competition.

Measuring customer loyalty can accurately appraise the weakness in CCC proposition and help to formulate improvements. In fact, attempting to measure customer satisfaction and factoring research information on satisfaction studies into future marketing strategies is one of the fastest growing areas of marketing research. Customer care is fundamental to the concept in customer relationship management (CRM). High quality customer care is the key to achieving coca cola objective confronting all competitive firms trying to apply CRM principles, such as:

• Minimising customer turnover. Attracting new customers.
• Retaining customers over the long term.
• Improving profitability.
• Enhancing company image.
• Improving customer and employee satisfaction.

With a strong CRM team, coco cola are still strong as ever, they evaluated every feedback they receive from their customers with shows they are always trying to meet the consumers needs by not only improving for the future but to keep up with the current trends.  Trading environment analysis requires CCC to look beyond its immediate market to its wider trading environment.

One helpful abbreviation in analysing the trading environment is PEST. The initial letters stand for the Political, Economic, Social and Technological environment. The Political environment includes possible changes to law and regulation governing the markets in which coca cola is operating. Possible changes in government policy, such as new legislation or regulation of food and drinking products. Or even government involvement in labelling and advertisements. If all this was to be changed and affect coca cola, it will create more operating expense and reduce the profit margin.

The Economic environment refers to trends in the world economy, and those in particular national market. CCC must be particularly to those that most affect its own business. As CCC is trading worldwide, the range of economic indicators, which it tracks, might include:

• Contracts with other soft drink industries.
• Maintain a Profitable investment in communities worldwide.
• The United Kingdom has recently experienced an economic recession.

This period of negative growth includes higher unemployment, inflation, and cost of living expenses while consumers are experiencing lower disposable income and purchasing power. CCC has been very successful in helping other nations grow and become economically stable by investing millions of Pounds back into the countries in which they are operating. The Social Environment refers to trend in the structure of society and in behaviour and is the focus of much of what is called market research. CCC have developed numerous products to suit consumer’s trends. For example, a lot of consumers are health conscious, so bringing out diet coke encouraged them to drink the brand. However, a lot of people saw the drink very girly so it soon was perceived as girls drink, as there’s no calories involved with the drink.

Soon coca cola brought out Coke Zero, a similar drink but for men. It has now become one of the best selling drink worldwide. CCC are continuing to follow and keep updated with the product development and marketing for healthy choice obtainable. The Technological environment is that concerned with the use of raw materials, production processes and finished products, and particularly with innovation. Such as CCC is the soft drink industry; the development of a plastic material has reduced the use of glass bottle dramatically. CCC also have threats technological. For this, they implement more investments in their research department so they can progress monitoring of the sales, production and delivery process between themselves and other soft drink companies’.

Purchase Decision

There are three way of purchase decision for CCC: Straight re-purchase = this is the most frequent type of purchase. The consumer repeats – buys a CCC product purchased on previous occasion. This occurs most frequently in circumstances in which a consumer is loyal to a brand and is reluctant to try an alternative.

Modified re-purchase = this occurs when a consumer needs to change their behaviour. This might be because the habitual brand is out-of-stock and a near substitute is selected; it might be prompted by the changed needs of the consumer; it might be promoted by the updating of an existing product; it might be prompted by promotional activity by a competing product. New purchase = this refers to that category of purchase, which is being made for the first time. Here promotion plays a key role in stimulating demand for products, notifying consumer of their availability, and in reassuring consumer about their purchase. The competitive environment affects the commercial prosperity of a company. Many UK manufactures in industries like steel and textile have experience intense competition from foreign product. Management team must be alert to potential threats from cheaper import or substitute products and establish exactly who their competitors are and the benefits they offer to the marketplace so they can compete more effectively. Two indicator of enormous importance to a management teams are market share and market growth.

Market share is a term, which refers to the proportion of total sales for one product group, which is, enjoy by a particular brand. According to Stephen Page book to Induction to marketing CCC enjoyed 58 per cent share of the total sales of cola drink in the UK in 1992. According to Best Global Brand CCC is ranked number one, valued just over $71 Billion. Leaving their main competitors Pepsi ranked at number 22nd, only valued at $14 million. Buyer Behaviour CCC needs to know when, where, how and why soft drinks are purchased.

They need to know who is making the purchase and what factors influence those decisions. In particular, they examine buyer behaviour to look for patterns, which may give a clue to future behaviour, as well as explanation for the existence of those patterns. Buyer term refers not only to someone who is buying for own consumption, but also to anyone who buys on behalf of others. For example, it could be an adult of a household buying on behalf of a child. Buyer behaviour in business-to-business market is an area that has not been as well researched as consumer behaviour.

First it is because these markets are often much smaller than consumer markets, and would not therefore justify the production of off-the-shelf data by commercial agencies. Hence not as much research has been undertaken. Secondly, industrial buying decision-maker has been more difficult to research and categories than consumer. However, interest is now growing in the subject.

Market Segmentation

Marketing segmentation is the analysis of total demand in a market into its constituent parts, so that different sets of consumers, with distinctive needs and behavior patterns, can be identified. Market segmentation is defined as: “The process of breaking down the total market for a product or service into distinct sub-group or segments, where each segment might represent a distinct target market to be reached with a distinctive marketing mix. ” Marketing made simple. To improve opportunities for success in a competitive marketplace, marketers must focus their efforts on clearly defines market targets. The intention is to select those groups of customers that the company is best able to serve so that competitive pressure is minimized. The advantages of CCC target marketing are:

• Marketing opportunities and ‘gaps’ in a market may be more accurately identified and appraised.
• Product and market appeals can be more finely tuned to the needs of the potential customer.
• Marketing effort can be focused on the market segments that offer the greatest potential for the company to achieve its objective.

Previously in the 1960s, CCC made only one soft drink and proposed it at the entire soft drink market. But now CCC offers thousands of different products to market segments based on diverse consumer preferences for flavours and calorie and caffeine content. CCC offers established soft drinks. One can see the many dimensions of CCC product line and how specific the marketing mixes have to be to stay competitive among other businesses.

Market Planning

At one extreme are those that plan everything down to the smallest detail, and adhere rigidly to the plan document, even when it does not appear to be working, perhaps because the plan is based upon inaccurate information or incorrect assumption. In an ideal situation, the evolution of an organisation marketing strategy and tactics will be top-down, bottom-up process; that is, one, which involves staff at all, levels from director to office junior.

It will be an integral part of the organisations operation, and not simply a panic reaction to a crisis. It will be flexible enough to permit immediately workable ideas to be put into practice, without waiting for the final plan to be drawn up. It should not be cast in tablets of stone; if circumstances change during implementation of the plan, then the plan must change to. Companies that only ten years ago might have identified their main competitor as major domestic rival are now just as likely to refer to an company in

Europe, USA or the Far East. Some organization outgrew their home market years ago, and now make most of their money outside their original national boundaries, to that extent, Corporations like CCC have become almost stateless, owing no allegiance to any particular country: their markets are global. International marketing does not differ fundamentally from domestic marketing; the same principal are involved. It differs only in that overseas markets, being both further away and containing consumer from other cultures, pose a higher degree of risk than those of known markets.

Successful entry into an overseas market thus requires even greater care and attention to planning. Ironically, most company enters oversea markets because they have surplus production that they want to dispose of. If, however, a business cannot sell its products at home, it is unlikely to be able to do so internationally. There is world of difference between simple exporting, and a proper approach to international marketing. For CCC, selling oversea is attractive because it enlarges their market beyond the confines of the nation state.

However, there are other benefits too, including:

1. Opportunities for growth, higher earning and higher profits.
2. The spreading of risk, by reducing dependency upon any one national market.
3. The spreading of fix cost across increases sales.
4. Competitors’ brand can be attacked in their own home market.
5. An CCC competitive edge is sharpened, by it being required to compete with the best in the world.
6.  The contribution to CCC feel good factor if it succeeds.

Conclusion

CCC believes to drive the brand to the fullest success it can go. It will adapt to any changes for new products if it requires to society and consumers Sometime for consumer product change is good for international marketing. It is vital that the right product is made to suit consumers’ preference. CCC soft drinks did not appeal to the Japanese market; this meant CCC produced a product that the Japanese, Asian market would prefer. This was Asian tea, English tea, coffee and fermented-milk drink. Coke zero was brought out for the attention of men who where health conscious. Coke zero sounded less feminine like diet coke.

CCC has shown that they will continue altering, improving and producing new ideas to attract to local taste. The CCC are always one step ahead of their game with their marketing effort. This has led them to profit throughout the years of developing into a billion dollar company. Their belief of being the best soft drink company worldwide has been their biggest accomplishment. CCC are not only involved with the best advertisement and marketing soft drinks, but also a difference in every corner of the world in which they operate. The Coca-Cola Company strives to go beyond simple marketing and reach into the hearts and lives of consumers.

Bibliography

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