Coca-Cola is a world renowned American multinational company which is prominent for its non-alcoholic beverages around the World. The leader of sweetened carbonated beverage was established at soda fountain in downtown Atlanta, Georgia, in 1886. From the beginning of its journey, this giant company continually provides premium soft drinks to its consumers for more than hundred years throughout 200 countries of the world. This brand operates its business worldwide for keeping promises with its customers. The current new worth of this company is nearly $ 87.6 Billion. To keep the zenith position at beverage market, it always follows extraordinary marketing strategies for assuring quality of its products & services.
4P’s or Marketing Mix of Coca-Cola
Marketing mix is an important tool to understand different types of strategies the Coca-Cola applying for achieving its business growth.
Product Strategy of Coca-Cola
The word Products stands for the value it can offer to its consumers. Products are the main subject based on which others steps of algorithm are decorated to become a pioneer brand in a market. As a core of a business Coca-Cola manages heavy products line & introduces different categories of products throughout the world. It offers its products with variety of taste including customer choices.
Coca-Cola, Fanta, Sprite, Diet Coke, Coca-Cola zero are the major products of Coca-Cola. It designed its Can, Pat bottle, bottle through unique method which looks very attractive with its brand name. It usually follows regular sizes with wide ranges of variety like 250 ml, 500 ml, 1000 ml(1lL), 1500 ml(1.5lL), 2000 ml(2L) thinking with the buying capacity of a customer. Coca-Cola is the company’s signature product. It is one of the most prominent and valued brands comparing with others. Among all, Coca-Cola is the world’s most demanded & highest- selling non alcoholic drink. Fanta, Sprite, Diet Coke, Coca-Cola zero are branding to enlarge the products line of this company with vast range of variety with different taste to capture the market from others competitor to hold the title of best brand in the beverage market. All of these branding strategies helped Coca-Cola to develop its business strengths and reduce business weaknesses.
Pricing Strategy of Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola always tries to maintain price discrimination method in its marketing mix. Here, price discrimination follows different prices against variety of products in various segments. From Most of the research, it’s already been clear that the beverage market is counted an oligopoly market which refers a few amount of sellers & vast amount of consumers. Coca-Cola & Pepsi are the two market leading company at beverage sector. Coke & Pepsi followed each other while pricing their product in different segment.
Consumers in developing countries, like Bangladesh are price sensitive & changes their consumption frequently. If Coca-Cola’s prices are high against their competitors, then the consumers switch to another known brand to meet their demand up to their purchasing capability. As a result this giant agreed to maintain their products prices similarity in different segment compared with Pepsi, though Coca-Cola always offer discounts on large size bottle to attract customer or to convince them to purchase more to get extra benefit. So, it can be said that, Coca-Cola always try to maintain their pricing strategy based on a theme ‘meet –the-competition pricing’. It refers that original taste of it always on your touch as because it is determined to set affordable price.
Place or Distribution Strategy of Coca-Cola
Place or distribution strategy of Coca-Cola refers that, where the products are available & how they set availability of products to their customers. It owns an effective chain distribution system. It’s clear that, it has built a widespread distribution network across the world. The company’s distribution strategy is very concentrated as well. Mentioned earlier that, its products are widely sold in more than 200 countries over 6 operating area named Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania, Latin & North America. Coca-Cola manages to sell more or less around 1.9 billion servings every day.
The company is always depending on its bottling partners for its packaging & distribution of its products. It basically depends on multiple local channels to operate its business. Its packaging partners contact closely with consumers including grocery shops, restaurants, street stores, cinema hall & amusement parks. As Coke’s ingredients are known enough, the main recipe of Coca-Cola is undisclosed. It produces a syrup concentrate to sell to its accredited bottlers across the world. The bottlers then add drinkable water and sweeteners with the concentrate to produce the final products in pat bottle, cans and glass bottles. The accredited bottlers then sell, distribute, and merchandise the finished products to retail.
Promotion Strategy of Coca-Cola
If you are considering choosing one brand that has always been consistent with its promotional activities in marketing strategy, it is Coca-Cola. No deviation seen in its promotional activities though it’s already settled in peak position of market. Promotional strategies always focuses on aggressive marketing through advertisement using print media, TV channels, social media, sports branding, corporate social responsibility programs. It never forgets to use local language while making advertisements as because it meets demands of multicultural people of different nations.
Coca-Cola follows another outstanding strategy to keep continuing the brand awareness in customers mind. Getting shelves in big super mart to display its product is one of them. This strategy helps to make a clearer view of available products to the consumers. Shop owners & salesperson convinced frequently due to lucrative offer of Coca-Cola to position their freezers and their products in eye catching sight. Company sometimes does quick sponsor with different educational institutions cafes and sponsors their game events and other extra curriculum activities for getting market share. Uses UTC Scheme to offer handy prizes offer like, caps, TV sets, cash prizes, smart phones etc & it’s a favorite campaign to consumers.
Conclusion
It’s tough to reach conclusion about Coca-Cola’s marketing mix as because it’s a well established brand & its activities are vast enough to analyze. At the end, it can be said that, the marketing mix of Coca-Cola is a complex one to understand due to frequent changes of their strategy to cope up with the fastest world’s choice. It always adheres to redesign its products, price, and place/distribution, promotional activates to hold the title of market leader in beverage sector.
References
- colacompany.com
- https://iide.co/case-studies/marketing-mix-of-coca-cola
- https://www.mbaskool.com/marketing-mix/products/16786-coca-cola.html
- https://notesmatic.com/coca-cola-marketing-mix/
- https://howandwhat.net/marketing-mix-coca-cola-coca-cola-marketing-mix