The Coca-Cola Company Marketing R

The Coca-Cola Company| | | | | An Analysis of The Coca-Cola Company| 6/13/2010| | Table of Contents Title Page1 Table of Contents2 Introduction3 5C’s Analysis4-10 4P’s Analysis11-14 SWOT Analysis & Final Remarks15-17 Introduction In May 1886, John Pemberton, who was a pharmacist from Atlanta, Georgia was the first founder of coca cola. He concocted the coca cola formula in kin three legged brass kettle which the suggestion was given by bookkeeper Frank Robinson. Coke was fist sold at the pharmacy as a non alcoholic version of French wine coca.

However, the sales were loss due to over expansion and health problems such as, disease, morphine, addictive, and headache. Because “Coca-cola” belonged to Charley, it was named coca-cola. Afterwards, Asa Candler, the Atlanta pharmacist/businessman bought the formula from John. His marketing skills were a huge success to the company during the 50th anniversary. His best skills were his promotion ideas. He gave away coupons for complimentary first takes of coca-cola, gave calendar, urns and clocks to pharmacist. These promotions increased the sales by over 4000% during 1890-1900.

Also, he gave minor changes in the ingredient and sold it in bottle, which was first sold in Vicksburg, Mississippi. Because the company was not too happy about the proliferation of copycat beverages and to safeguard the brand, they advertised that focused the authenticity of coca-cola. Later in 1923, Robert Woodruff brought the company from Asa Candler. He was a marketing genius because he observed potential overseas opportunities. He would capitalize on these opportunities by introducing Coke products in the 1928 Olympic Games.

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Woodruff made innovation by making distribution of 6 packs, open top cooler that was easier for people to drink at home or away, which was a huge success. Coca-Cola would reiterate its dedication towards the globalizing Coca-cola by initiating a series of advertisements linking Coca-Cola to the world. A specific advertisement that helped Coca-Cola shine its international appeal occurred in 1970 where Coca-Cola made young people from all over the world sing a song called “I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke”.

Coca-Cola continually succeeded even amid protests of Coca-Cola’s changing of its formula. After protests, Coke Company returned to its old formula. This helped regain its market share over competition and led to the Coca-Cola Company’s introduction of a diet coke product that used Splenda sugar, which was its trademark. In the 21st century, in 2007 it came up with diet coke that contained vitamin B6, B12, magnesium, niacin, and zinc. Diet coke plus was made to be considered as a healthier soda. Coca-cola stopped printing the word “Classic” on the labels of 16 oz bottles.

Coca-cola is committed to local markets and has bottling partners. Currently it is ubiquitous brand, every single time, it is known as “the most exciting and satisfying beverage. ” This report will analyze why and how The Coca-Cola Company was able to achieve its title as the number one soft-drink company in the world. Beginning with an analysis of the 5C’s regarding the company, followed by a 4P’s analysis, and ending with a SWOT analysis, will highlight what factors drove towards Coca-Cola’s dominance in the soft-drink market. 5 C’s Analysis

Having been in the soft-drink industry for over 100 years says a lot about their experience in the soft-drink industry. Coca-Cola’s long endeavored success has led to their ability to sustain a high market share in the non-alcoholic drink market with their driving force product in Coca-Cola but also in its other products as well. According to their website, Coca-Cola serves up to 1. 6Billion servings a day of their products, which poses the question on how they are able to keep up with such a high demand? An answer lies in their company mission statement, which is to: * To refresh the world... To inspire moments of optimism and happiness... * To create value and make a difference. (Source: http://www. thecoca-colacompany. com) It is this making Coca-Cola a “part of one’s lifestyle” mentality that has allowed Coca-Cola to expand its brand image from a national level to a global level, which has fueled their dedication to keep up with these mind-boggling demand figures ever since the year of the inception of the Coca-Cola company. Their global image has reached the point where global sales have triumphed over the once dominant national U. S. market.

For example, Coca-Cola’s 2008 revenue levels indicated that 75% of its revenues came from global sales, whereas only 25% came from North America. This statistical figure indicates that the Coca-Cola is indeed a global brand. In fact, according to a 2006 study done by Businessweek and Interbrand, Coca-Cola was rated the world’s number one brand: (http://www. interbrand. com/images/studies/BGB06Report_072706. pdf) Coca Cola’s ability to recognize the global market size and actually capitalize on it represents a huge part of why Coca-Cola has attained this sort of recognition.

Although Coca-cola represents the biggest company in the world, it surprisingly doesn’t bottle and distributes its own products. Instead, franchises of different bottling collaborating companies represent the bulk of the bottling and distribution of Coca-Cola’s products. Coca-Cola does maintain a high amount of market shares in most of these bottling companies, ensuring that heavy demand goals can be met for the Company. Coca-Cola’s biggest collaborators represent Coca-Cola Enterprises, Coca-Cola Femsa, and Coca-Cola Hellenic Bottling Co.

The Coca-Cola Company owns 31. 6%, 32%, and 23% respectively of each of these bottling companies. Coca-Cola Enterprises represents the biggest franchisee bottling and distributing company. It bottles and distributes for 80% of U. S sales and bottles and distributes for 18% of worldwide sales. Here is a diagram that explains the logistics behind Coca-Cola Enterprises’ operations: Coca-Cola Femsa is heavily focused in Central and South-America, and the Coca-Cola Hellenic Bottling Co is heavily focused within regions pning from Africa, Europe, and Asia.

It is this collaboration methodology that has allowed Coca-Cola to focus more on the development and maintaining of its products and brands. The number of shares that the Coca-Cola invests in most of these bottling companies ensures the alliance will be strong between the two, because they do represent the main driving force behind the bottling and distribution of Coca-Cola’s products. There is recent speculation though that Coca-Cola may indeed fully acquire its biggest collaborator in Coca-Cola Enterprises in wake of Pepsi’s Co. ’s acquisitions of some of their bottling collaborators.

Another set of collaborators are represented in its relationships with other companies. As a prominent brand image, many companies have worked with Coca-Cola to help further advertise their own company. These companies can be directly related to Coca-Cola in that Coca-Cola might represent a compliment with their product. These industries include restaurants of all sorts, movie theaters, convenient stores, supermarkets etc. Coca-Cola has usually teamed up with all these type of venues to ensure that its brand gets spread throughout all kinds of settings.

This usually results in promotions associated only with Coca-Cola products, the selling of only coca-cola products, or special promotions that include receiving Coca-Cola product if a certain product of the company’s is purchased. A notable relationship in this regard was the deal between McDonald’s and Coca-Cola. In 2009, Coca-Cola and McDonalds continued its over 50 year relationship with each other by reworking a deal where McDonalds would feature not only Coke, but many of Coca-Cola’s newer brands as well. This includes Coke-Zero, PowerAde, Fanta, and now even Vitamin Water.

Their good relationship with each other helps benefits both companies in that people will link the quality of both brands with each other. It is these direct companies that represent the bulk of Coca-Cola’s sales, since most of Coca-Cola’s products are distributed at these venues. It is up to Coca-Cola to maintain good relations and a strong brand image in order for these direct companies to collaborate with Coca-Cola. Also there are indirectly related company collaborators with Coca-Cola. For example, in 2006 Coca-Cola launched MyCokeRewards.

This promotional project allowed users to reap points for the purchasing of any of Coca-Cola’s products. These points could then be redeemed for various prizes, towards a contest, or towards the entering of a sweepstakes. Partnered relationships included in this rewards program included: Holiday Inn, Nike, Block Buster, Delta, and Six Flags. Another notable indirect collaborator with Coca-Cola is Apple. In 2006, Apple and Coca-Cola agreed to a collaboration in which a Coca-Cola themed music site was created to promote bands all across Europe with the integration of Apple’s ITunes system.

These examples of indirect company collaborators show that though they don’t distribute Coca-Cola’s products, these indirect collaborators help promote their own product along with products of Coca-Cola. Beginning with a smaller form of competition, local drink brands represent the bulk of these competitors. Their only strength is their prevalence in their local location but they have a huge list of weaknesses when compared to the Coca Cola Company. These weaknesses include small amount of assets, lack of product extension, and prevalence outside of their local location.

With most of these competitors, the Coca-Cola can simply acquire them through payment, or drive them out through a bunch of schemes. These schemes include price gauging or high amounts of advertisements. Since Coca-Cola produces so many types of non-alcoholic drink products, Coca-Cola can easily enter all sects of the drink market in most countries of the world. However it is no doubt that Pepsi Co. represents the biggest competitor of the Coca-Cola Company. Pepsi Co. began in a similar fashion of the Coca-Cola in that Pepsi Co. s most popular product in Pepsi was developed by a pharmacist in 1903. Like the Coca-Cola Company, Pepsi Co. has variations on Pepsi and has a huge product listing of different drinks encompassing the non-alcoholic drink spectrum as well. Pepsi Co. also follows a horizontal integration system with the merger and acquisition of other similar drink products. Some Pepsi Co. ’s other popular drinks besides Pepsi include, Diet Pepsi, 7-Up, Tropicana, Gatorade, Mountain Dew, Aquafina and a bunch of other products.

These companies are indeed direct competitors because they both represent the two biggest drink companies in the world and each one wants to make sure it has the vast majority market shares. The two companies aren’t entirely the same though. Merging with Frito Lay in 1965, Pepsi Co. enjoys the strength benefit of advertising its products along side Frito Lay’s products. This food/drink combination allows both Frito Lay and Pepsi to benefit, since both can make promotions for each of its products. Nevertheless, this can also be induced as a weakness of the company as well.

This is because Pepsi has to allocate some resources to the development and production of Frito Lay products, which allows The Coca-Cola Company the ability to slowly take control of the drink market since that is its only focus. Also any negativity with any Frito-Lay products could be linked to Pepsi products if both products are too frequently marketed together. It is these two ideas that could prompt why The Coca-Cola still enjoys a higher level of market shares on Pepsi. It’s not entirely because of these two ideas that Coca-Cola still enjoys a higher market share; there are many other factors as well.

One specific advantage that Coca-Cola had over Pepsi was that The Coca-Cola Company owned Columbia Pictures from 1982-1989. Between this time, Coca-Cola easily advertised their products indirectly by including it in a multitude of films. Both companies employ similar marketing tactics, in that both try to popularize its main product in Pepsi and Coke respectively. Both companies have used celebrities, sponsorships, multitudes of TV ads, appearances in TV shows/movies, and all kinds of advertisement strategies. However these marketing schemes have caused the two companies to engage in what many call the “Cola Wars”.

Since the 1970’s both companies had countless of ads trying to devalue the other company’s main product: Pepsi initiated this by starting a set of commercials of having Blind Tastes. Deemed as the “Pepsi Challenge”, these types of ads would extenuate Coca-Cola refuted to some of these ads by producing similar ads and also by producing a new recipe of coke in the 1980’s. It slowly reverted back to its classic formula later on but despite these devaluation schemes, both companies seem to employ the same advertising schemes by portraying their product as a something that should be a part of one’s lifestyle.

It has come to a point where whenever Coca-Cola has an advertisement, you’ll most likely see a similar Pepsi advertisement as well. At this point, both companies have become so prevalent in the global market that people usually don’t differentiate between the two main products in Coke and Pepsi. Sure some diehard fans of each company will disagree, but there are plenty of examples where this idea can be seen. For example, you go to a restaurant and you ask for a Coke.

When the waitress responds, “Oh sorry we only have Pepsi”, you’ll most likely respond with “oh that’s fine. ” It has come to this point where both companies can benefit from the competition aspect, but at the same time if one company drops the ball or messes up badly, the other company can easily capitalize on the market since both companies represent the top 2 drink companies in the world. When evaluating the customer of Coca-Cola, it practically has no limits. Besides the alcoholic customer, the Coca-Cola Company has products that encompass all parts of the drink market.

The market size of the drink market practically covers the vast majority of the world since it compliments a biological function in replenishing thirst. However it depends on the motive and likes of the customer that will dictate which product he/she will buy. With a huge 3300 different kinds of beverages, Coca-Cola does a great job of not devaluing its most successful Coke brand with its other brands that target different parts of the non-alcoholic drink market. There are examples of devaluation may have occurred, such as in the production of Diet-Coke and Coke-Zero.

In the 1980’s was labeled as a time where individuals wanted to live a healthier lifestyle, so Coca-Cola had no choice but to develop a healthier version of its product in Diet Coke since its competitors were following suit. This theme again was reintroduced in the late 2000’s when health issues re-sparked. However realizing certain customer trends and behaviors, The Coca-Cola Company made a separate healthy drink in Coke Zero in hopes of targeting the male population. That’s because trends showed that males didn’t drink Diet-Coke due to the nature of its name being associated with a diet.

It was due to immense popularity and recognition of the Coca-Cola brand name and a culmination of systematic advertisements highlighting the healthiness of these diet Cokes that led most of its customer base to not deter away from the original product in Coca-Cola. A following section will dive into the marketing aspects that drive this popularity in its original product of Coke. According to this graph: carbonated soft-drinks represent the higher amount of gallons consumer per capital from 1991-2008.

It is because of this staggering trend that Coca-Cola’s most popular products are in its carbonated drinks. This trend has also transcended to the global level because of course Coca-Cola wanted to popularize its main product in Coca-Cola. Here are some statistical figures of per-capita consumption of Coca-Cola throughout the world: Coca-Cola knows the initial popularization of its Coke product will eventually help the sales of its other products. All labels of Coca-Cola’s products in some sort of form state it was manufactured by “The Coca-Cola Company. Since people can relate to the high brand quality of Coca-Cola, it will interest individuals to try out The Coca-Cola Company’s other products. And since the Coca-Cola Company has a product that covers every part of the soft-drink spectrum, customers will soon discovered that the Coca-Cola Company has a product that meets all its non-alcoholic drink needs. This is reflected in recent a sales figure which lists all of The Coca-Cola Company’s products that have garnered over $1billion in sales: The Coca-Cola Company has always strived to respond according to its context.

There weren’t many complications in the first half of the company’s history so it was easy for Coca-Cola to flow in into the drink environment and promote itself. But soon after the start of the 1980’s to 2000’s, complications behind the ingredients of Coca-Cola started to arise. This was because health officials noted that Coke could have potential health effects with its high content in sugar and caffeine. More specifically health and government officials noted that Coca-Cola utilized a cheap form of sugar called High Fructose Corn Syrup.

Developed from corn, this sugar is definitely considered an alternative to natural cane sugar due to its increased availability and its cheap cost. However it does pose a higher health risk since it has been linked to cause obesity and type-2 diabetes at a faster rate than cane sugar. In response to this, Coca-Cola developed product extension lines initially with Diet-Coke and Coke-Zero following suit in 2004. These two products responded well to these health-conscious environments. These types of examples show how the Coca-Cola Company stands behind its mission statement.

In no matter what shape or form, the Coca-Cola Company does its best to accommodate towards the current environment of the market. 4P Analysis Product: Coca-Cola offers a portfolio of more than 3,300 products in over 200 countries. Major Brands of Coca-Cola are: Coca-Cola sodas/soft drinks that generate > $1billion in annual sales (http://www. wikinvest. com/stock/Coca-Cola_Company_(KO)) Coca-Cola Dasani Diet Coca-Cola Vitamin Water Fanta Powerade Sprite Minute-Maid Coke Zero Aquarius Barq’s Rootbeer Nestea Odwalla Sokenbicha

Coca-Cola classic is the most popular and biggest selling soft-drink in history. Coca-Cola Classic is the best-known product in the world and was created in Atlanta, Georgia, by Dr. John S. Pemberton. By 1895 Coca-Cola Classic was being sold in every state and territory in the United States. As stated the driving force of The Coca-Cola company is in its original product of Coca-Cola, but they have slowly evolved their company to not only encompass the soda part of the soft-drink market, but literally of all of the other parts representing the non-alcoholic soft drink market as well.

It boasts a total of 3300 different beverages, with some of these beverages having high market share in the soda market as well as the other segments of the non-alcoholic soft drink market. However it can’t be overlooked that the Coca-Cola has participated in Product-Line extensions with the creation of alternative Coca-Cola brands, such as Diet-Coke, Coke-Zero, Vanilla Coke, Green Tea, Cola Lemon, Cola Lemon Lime, Cola Lime, Cola Orange, and even Cola Raspberry, and Cherry-Coke.

In a sense, The Coca-Cola’s company approach throughout the years can be seen as a form of Horizontal Integration in that Coca-Cola has expanded internally, with its external growth following suit. This external expansion is reflected by all the mergers and acquisitions of companies that offered similar products. All these factors show why the Coca-Cola Company has evolved to become biggest leader of the soft drink market. Another very popular Coca-Cola soft drink is Sprite. Sprite was introduced in 1961 and is the world leading lemon-lime flavored soft drink.

Sprite is sold in more than 190 countries and is ranked Number four in the soft drink worldwide industry because of its crisp, clean taste that really quenches your thirst. Sprite has a strong appeal to the “young” generation because of its honest and straightforward attitude that sets it apart from other soft drinks. Sprite encourages you to be true to whom you are and obey your thirst. Product packaging includes products of sparkling drinks and still beverages (water, juices, juice drinks, teas, coffees, sports drinks, energy drinks).

Through innovative fountain distribution, Coke-Cola is able to be more flexible and reliable towards consumer satisfaction. Packaging beverages where through plastic bottles and aluminum cans. The Coca-Cola Company is recognized by 94% of the world’s population. According to Coca-Cola product packaging strategy their approach is to identify and utilize the most compelling combination of packaging elements that best communicates what Coca-Cola stands for around the world – Unique taste, great refreshment and authenticity. PLACE: The Coca-Cola Company is the world’s largest beverage company.

Beverages are sold in over 200+ locations throughout the world. The Coca-Cola headquarters is located in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Coca-Cola has an employee net force of approximately 92,400 members. The operating groups are division as: –Eurasia & Africa Group –Europe Group –North America Group –Pacific Group –Bottling Investments Group –McDonald’s Group The Coca-Cola system is a global business that operates on a local scale (community business) that allows Coca-Cola to create a global reach with local focuses because of the strengths of the Coca-Cola system which involves their 300+ bottling partners worldwide.

Coca-Cola and their 92,000+ associates around the world live and work in the markets that serve more than 87 percent of outside markets in the U. S. This geographically diverse environment helps Coca-Cola learn from each market and share those learning’s to develop collaborative company culture. PRICE: Pricing varies according to brand and size. Approximately Coca-Cola 2L costs about $1. 68 and a pack of 375mL x 18 cans of Coca-Cola is approximately $9. 98. Studies show that instead of pricing a pack of Coca-Cola as $10. 00, pricing a price even one cent cheaper as $9. 9 is due to the psychological perception of cost strategy that makes the product of the price seem much cheaper even if it is just one or two cents cheaper from the nearest whole number. Coca-Cola’s pricing influences are contributed to Coca-Cola’s products that are sold and distributed to retail stores and set by their pricing strategies. Convenient stores and petrol stations usually sell Coca-Cola products at a fixed price. Discount prices are often set and marked down during sale periods and special occasions to increase sales and profits.

Prices are set around competitors and seasons also have an influence in pricing. PROMOTION: Coca-Cola cares about the welfare of animals and supports their proper treatment. Coca-Cola and their U. S. bottling partners will not sponsor events or attractions that feature animals unless the event organizers have policies and procedures in place to support the humane treatment of animals and provide ready access to quality veterinary care to protect the animals' health and safety.

For more than 50 years, Coca-Cola has had a policy not to advertise full-calorie, sparkling soft drinks on TV programming that targets children under 12. The Coca-Cola Company believes that children under 12 should not be the audience of Coca-Colas advertising and marketing practices because of the nutritional contents in the beverages that may not be suitable for children under the age of 12. The Coca-Cola Company may have more than one promotion running at any given time and may use many different types and strategies to promote their products.

Coca-Cola uses shelving strategy that is the positioning of their products in stores, eye catching position strategy that is the attraction of customer attention to Coca-Colas products, sale promotions through sponsorship with schools and sport events ex. FIA World Cup, and UTC (Under the Crown) offering prizes to promote Coca-Cola products. Coca-Cola uses advertising as its main source of increasing consumer awareness. Television is their main advertising source. The music used in advertising is often an original recording produced by agencies specifically for that commercial.

Coca-Cola also uses POS (Point Of Sale) that is used through posters and stickers of Coca-Cola and billboards to promote products and the Coca-Cola Company at different site locations. The following amounts reflect the total worldwide amounts spent on print, radio, internet, and television advertising. Advertising expenses included in selling, administrative and general expenses that were approximately: 2006: $2. 6 billion 2005: $2. 5 billion 2004: $2. 2 billion 2003: $1. 8 billion 2002: $1. 7 billion 2001: $2. 0 billion 2000: $1. 7 billion 1999: $1. billion 1998: $1. 6 billion 1997: $1. 6 billion 1996: $1. 4 billion 1995: $1. 3 billion 1994: $1. 1 billion 1993: $1. 0 billion SWOT Analysis A SWOT analysis was done on the Coca-Cola Company to pinpoint key factors that led to Coca-Cola’s past and current success in the soft drink market. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats, so to begin with the analysis, the strengths sector will be looked at first. Coca-Cola’s strengths include; strong market strategies, product diversification, and many distribution channels.

Coca-Cola uses a mix of great advertisements which include catchy slogans, a strong family-brand image, and also sponsors sporting events. A prime example of one of their successful advertisements was seen with their launch of Coke Zero. Coke Zero is a dietary substitute to the original Coke, like Diet Coke, but claims to have the same flavor as the original Coke. Their slogan that was used was, “A clear case of taste infringement. ” Advertisements were run on television of lawyers from Coca-Cola trying to “sue” Coke Zero for copying their flavor, even though Coca-Cola obviously made Coke Zero.

In the end Coke Zero proved to be a big hit for Coca-Cola and continues to be a success. As for their family-brand image, Coke has always been seen as family friendly in the United States of America for a very long time. To illustrate this image, Coca-Cola has utilized a general heuristic marketing, generally aimed at making people link fun and family friendly with the Coca-Cola Company. Some examples include; Coca-Cola’s holiday campaigning, partnerships with “family-friendly” venues, and prizes that appeal to a typical American family.

Santa is seen as the biggest icon and representative of the holiday season. Coca-Cola is the reason for the present-day image of Santa. “Coca-Cola® advertising actually helped shape this modern-day image of Santa. ” As for their partnerships, Coca-Cola has been a long-time partner with McDonalds. Along with McDonalds, Coca-Cola teamed up with Regal Theaters and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). McDonalds and Regal Entertainment Group provide family friendly venues targeted for dining and entertainment purposes, respectively. The WWF is a charitable worldwide wildlife and agricultural conservation organization.

They teamed up with Coca-Cola to help regulate Coke’s water usage and its effect on the world’s agriculture. All three mentioned companies are seen as family friendly or have a mission statement that is family-approved. Coca-Cola expands their brand awareness by constantly being associated with worldwide sporting events. Coca-Cola is sponsoring the FIFA World Cup, which is the biggest sporting event in the world, the NBA, the NCAA, and NASCAR. Many commercials and billboards can be seen during these sporting events, as they are all advertisements of Coca-Cola. Product Diversification is a valuable piece to Coca-Cola’s success.

Along with the original Coke line, Coca-Cola also produces various sports drinks, bottled water, energy drinks, and also clothing and merchandise. Coca-Cola is the owner of PowerAde, Dasani, and Full Throttle. Currently, these three brands have a significant presence in the U. S. market that can’t be ignored. Coca-Cola’s many distribution channels may be what makes Coca-Cola so dominant. Coca-Cola created the contour bottle in 1916, and they own shares of major bottling factories around the world. This has led Coca-Cola to be one of the world’s most recognized brands, being recognized by 94% of the whole world.

The main weakness that has been found with Coca-Cola is their poor nutritional content. Although Coca-Cola is enjoyed by many different age groups worldwide, Coke is high in sugar and calories, has caffeine, and is associated with many fast foods. This is a problem with Coca-Cola as they have many different partnerships and distribution channels. The fact that Coke is so widely distributed and known gives them a larger opportunity to affect a large number of people. Coca-Cola has been linked with many different diseases and health issues which include; tooth decay, obesity, and diabetes.

Although Coca-Cola is the current leading company in the soft drink market, there are still many new opportunities that exist to further strengthen their market share and keep other competitors at bay. Some opportunities that exist include, more sponsorships and diversifying into other segments. As mentioned before, Coca-Cola is currently involved with various sports sponsorships. However, Coca-Cola could broaden their sports sponsorships and gain more visibility. For the events that Coca-Cola is sponsoring, they have little visibility, as they are briefly mentioned in a name or seen on small billboards across the television screen.

A suggestion that was thought of was the endorsement of a soccer team. It is a common practice for a corporation to endorse a team, and in return, have that corporation’s name and logo printed all over the uniform. An example of this that may be popular in Korea would be the player Park Ji-Sung. Park Ji-Sung plays for Manchester United and they are currently sponsored by AIG. The justification in this form of advertising would the fact that soccer is the world’s most watched sport, and there is no better way than to get a company’s name out to sports fans.

Another solution that was taken into consideration is the expansion to different sectors in the food industry. Following the examples of A;W Root Beer and Baskin Robbins, if a Coca-Cola cafe opened up, the results could be great financially. The original idea for a Baskin Robbins Cafe to open up was part of a plan to revitalize the company after years of falling sales. Although Coca-Cola doesn’t have a failing company, this could still boost sales and increase Coca-Cola’s dominance in the soft-drink industry, while boosting brand awareness among consumers. The last part of the SWOT analysis is threats.

When Coca-Cola is thought of, Pepsi is almost always mentioned in the same sentence. Coca-Cola and Pepsi have been battling for the top position in the soft-drink market for years. Although Coca-Cola sits at the top spot for now, Pepsi has and always will be threatening Coke for soft-drink supremacy. From the infamous “Cola Wars” in the 1980’s-1990’s to the present day market situation, there is always a sense of insecurity and uncertainty of who will be the next #1. Different marketing schemes and ploys have been taken in the past to outdo one another. Starting with clever advertising, blind taste tests, rewards rograms, and partnerships with other members of the food and beverage industry, every new project fuels a constant battle between the two companies. As explained before, Pepsi can be seen as a direct competitor to Coke in a very direct and narrow perspective. However, if the soft drink industry is seen as whole, or rather the beverage industry, any drink offered in the market can be seen as a potential competitor of Coca-Cola. Healthier alternatives include; tea, water, and coffee. Tea and coffee can be seen as a healthier source of caffeine, while water can be seen as a healthier drink alternative in general.

Overall, this SWOT analysis was done to see the present issues and potential problems in Coca-Cola’s current market, as well as to find solutions to these issues. Coca-Cola is mainly a provider of their staple drink, Coca-Cola Classic, but they also produce different products within the soft-drink industry. Although there is no correct answer to any current and potential issues, diversification into other food segments and new venues seem like a profitable venture for Coca-Cola. The Coca-Cola Company’s has been on path towards dominance since its inception.

Initially popularizing itself nationally then capitalizing on global opportunities has led to the major expansion of the Company, which originally started off as a single-product drink company to now a company that boasts a very solid single-product in Coca-Cola with alternatives in all aspects of the non-alcoholic drink market. It’s popularization of Coca-Cola through its schemes of labeling it as fun and family friendly has helped the company strive towards is goals as a company highlighted in its mission of making its products widely available and refreshing the world.

Coca-Cola’s current state has shown that it can continue to utilize the same strategies explained towards its success in the future. The Coca-Cola Company has already shown that it can succeed at all types of time periods since the company is well over 100 years old. It’s experience and its smart and effective strategies will be key towards its positive future. -------------------------------------------- [ 1 ]. http://www. thecoca-colacompany. com/heritage/cokelore_santa. html

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