Marketing Plan On Coca Cola Essay Examples

Introduction

Coca cola drink is discovered in 1986 and in 1991 coca cola enterprise and bottling group joined together and emerged in a form of a strong company. Now Coca Cola Company has many factories in many areas of world. Headquarter of coca cola is in Ho Chi Minh City of Vietnam. This company has adopted the 59% of market share that is largest market share of any beverages company in the world.
Success of Coca Cola Company is due to production of aura record volume. The success of these readymade drinks is measured by their volume production and distribution. Sale of Coca Cola Company is increasing with every year.

Marketing Plan of Coca Cola

This tremendous success of coca cola is due to their best marketing strategies and plans. Marketing department of coca cola mainly focus on the needs of customers and they carefully listen the feedback of people. Coca cola is known as a global brand and marketing plans of coca cola are ver. comprehensive. Their main focus is to build a long lasting relationship with their consumers. Advertisement tools that Coca Cola Company used mostly engage the emotions of people with their brand name.

Objective of Marketing Plan

Success of every beverage company depends on four factors mainly. In addition, main objective of marketing plan is to cover all these four factors successfully. These factors are given below (McCole, 2004).

Availability

Range
Visibility
Cooling
Availability
Availability means that it is made sure the availability of their soft drink on every outlet. Soft drink comes under the head of those products for which customers some time do not bother a famous brand. If a brand is not available readily then the consumer will switch to the other brand. Therefore, Coca Cola Company has very good distribution channel that make availability of soft drinks to almost every outlet.

Range

Coca cola gives a variety of range in volume size. Everybody can buy drink according to his need. People find it easy to buy the soft drink of their own desired volume range.

Visibility

Coca cola ensures that every departmental store of shop have a clear and bright corner of their soft drink. They always try to get nearest corner in the store to catch the attention of people. If product will be hidden in the last corner then the consumers will not be attracted towards it. This is their good marketing strategy that they make sure clear visibility of their products in stores.

Cooling

Soft drinks are represented well when they are chilled. Therefore, Coca Cola Company distributes their refrigerators to the stores to keep the soft drink chilled. Because chilled soft drink is proffered by many consumers especially in summer season.

Marketing Mix of Coca Cola

Marketing mix is an important component of marketing plan of any company. Marketing mix of coca cola has following categories
Product
Price
Placement
Promotion
Packaging
Product
Coca Cola Company has a variety of brands that is distributed and sold in different countries in the world. Some major brands of coca cola are given below.

Coke

Fantail
Sprite
Diet coke
Coke classic
Coca cola zero
Samurai energy drink
Samurai maid fruit drink
Adjani water
Schweppes
Price
The Price of coca cola products is set according to the market need. Price of cola is based upon the perception of the consumer value. Coca Cola Company remembers the fact that seller-spending cost is always less than the value of consumer perception. Through this strategy coca cola has gained largest market share in the world. Product size is kept in mine while setting the product size. Different volume bottles have different prices.

Different price strategy is used by coca cola for their products. Some strategies are like

Different prices for different seasons
Trade promotions
Different Prices for Different Seasons
Price of coca cola products are changed according to the change in season. When demand of soft drink is at peak in summer season, prices of products are kept above than the normal prices and when there is low demand of products, special discount offers are given for prices.

Trade Promotions

Retailers and distributors are the major source for availability of products. Therefore, special promotional offers are given to them to make sure the availability of coca cola products to the maximum areas. Sometime free samples are also given to the stores (Cahill, 1996).
Promotion
Success of every business depends upon the promotional strategies of that business. To promote the product, the most important thing is to understand and judge the psychology of all consumers and then the decision about the type of promotional activity is taken. Some promotional strategies for coca cola are given below.

Getting shelves

Eye catching promotion
Sale promotion
Getting Shelves
Coca cola tries to get tee shell that is nearest in the reach of customers for their products. This thing makes availability of coca cola product to the largest target population.

Sale Promotion

Coca cola always gives sponsorships to many sports events in universities and colleges. Sometime special price discount is given to the customers.

Eye Catching Promotion

In departmental stores, eye catching eye promotions are done to attract the customers. Counters are decorated with beautiful colored themes to attract customers.

Advertisement

Advertisement of products is made through print media, TV channels, and social media. Outdoor advertisement is also done through billboards, wall printing and stalls in different places. Commercials are made attractive and emotional to make people connect with them emotionally.
Placement
Placement means that the location of purchasing of products. Distribution channel also cover under the head of placement. Two types of distribution channel is used for coca cola

Physical channel

Virtual channel
Product distribution is through the two channels
Direct selling
Indirect selling
Direct Selling
Direct selling means the product is distributed to the retailers through coca cola’s own transportation means. Supply of products is taken by the company itself (Cahill, 1996).

Indirect Selling

Indirect selling involves the different suppliers through whom the products are distributed to the stores. There are many special agencies that make agreement with coca cola and then products are supplied from the factories to the retail stores (Dickson and Ginter, 1987).
Packaging
Coca cola products have variety of packaging for its products. Vibrant colors are used to pack the bottles to attract consumers. The company capitalizes on the possibility of advertising to the customers on the events and festivities. Advertisements very specific to the occasions are tailored to reach out the potential customers (Barney, 1995).
The material that is used for peaking is recyclable. Even the cans are also recyclable.

Target Market

Young generation is the main target market of coca cola. However, the consumers of coca cola are from the all age groups. Coca Cola Company has targeted almost 150 markets across the whole world. They target the people who love to use soft drinks.

Factors That Affect the Sale of Coca Cola

Sale level of coca cola is mainly affected by the three main factors.
Per capita income
Weather
Competitors
Competitors of Coca Cola
Major competitor of coca cola is PEPSI. Pepsi also has many brands that give sometime tough competition to the coca cola products. They keep the competitive advantage by making availability of their products to every outlet of the area (Barney, 1995).

PEST Analysis of Coca Cola

Coca Cola Company has comes under the name of top 10 companies in the fortunes 500 companies. There are some factors that affect the market of coca cola. These factors are

Political factor

Economical factor
Social factor
Technological factor
Political Factor
Production of all the nonalcoholic beverages comes under the authority of food and drug administration. Coca Cola Company is regulated with this federation also. There are many laws and regulations that must be obeyed by the companies. Some factors that affect the production of coca cola includes

Change in law and regulation by the change of government

Change in the business area of non-alcoholic
Change in the political conditions of the markets
Emergence of new developing markets
Economic Factor
Economic factor is the most important factor that affects the production and sale of any company. Economic changes in the market affect the purchasing power of the customers and as well as cause inflation that because high cost of production.

Social Factor

Social factors also pay an important role in the sale of coca cola products. Some of them factors are listed below (Kytle and Ruggie, 2005)
Now people are becoming more health conscious and they prefer to use fresh juices instead of packed beverages or soft drinks.

Many people are also concerned about the time management

Most of the population from age 33-55 are becoming more health conscious and they are slowly lessen the intake of soft drinks as it is medically tested that these soft drink is not good for health.

Technological Factor

Technological innovations have changed the total face of business. Noël coca cola is also using new technologies in theory manufacturing units as well as new modes of promotions and distribution is used to attract a large consumers. Now promotional campaigns are also become technological advance to catch the attraction of customers.

SWOT Analysis

SWOT analysis is very necessary to know about the internal and external factors of the company. Strengths and weakness of any company give help in analyzing the internal health of the company and opportunities and threats are used to know about the external factors of the business.

Strengths

Coca Cola Company is among the top 10 companies of the world. This company has the largest market share in the whole world. Coca Cola Company makes its distribution channel very strong that they make sure the availability of theory products in almost every corner of the world. Coca cola company has most loyal customers as well as employees that reach the company to this high of success. This company has a very good and strong image in the eye of customer as a brand and as a social responsible corporate also. The big strength of this company is that they have very good relationships with their supply and they negotiate about raw material at a low price (Cahill, 1996).

Weaknesses

Now people are becoming more conscious about their health and they prefer fresh juices and drinks. As Coca Cola Company is only focusing on the production of these soft drinks. In future, it may be difficult for them to convince and attract people for usage of soft drinks. Company also borrowed $8 billion and this cause a great burden on the company and expenses of the company has increased very rapidly. There is no diversification in the products of coca cola that may cause a bad effect on the growth of company (McCole, 2004).

Opportunities

Company has many opportunities in the same industry as it is estimated that there will be larger consumption of bottled water in near future. Coca cola can also introduce their bottled water and also can work on juices that are beneficial for the health. Due to fast technology coca cola production can be increased more with low cost. Still many emerging markets have a great demand for the coca cola products. BRIC countries have greater demands for these soft drinks (Dickson and Ginter, 1987).

Threats

The big threat to coca cola is only the shift of trend from soft drinks to the fresh juices. There is also a problem of water scarcity in many areas of world and coca cola may have this problem of shortening of water availability. Gross profit of coca cola is showing some decline from past few years and the fact behind this is that now the cost of raw material and water is increased.

Conclusion

Coca Cola Company has the best marketing plan for its business. Due to good marketing strategies, Coca Cola Company has earned largest market share. Advertising techniques, that coca cola company uses best suits with their products. Coca cola must think about its weakness and try to eliminate them at the same time Coca Cola Company must understand the changing need of time in drinks and diversified its products for future competition.

References

Barney, J. B. (1995). Looking inside for competitive advantage. The Academy of Management Executive, 9(4), 49-61.
Cahill, D. J. (1996). Pioneer advantage: is it real? Does it matter?. Marketing Intelligence & Planning, 14(4), 5-8.
Dickson, P. R., & Ginter, J. L. (1987). Market segmentation, product differentiation, and marketing strategy. The Journal of Marketing, 1-10.
Kytle, B., & Ruggie, J. G. (2005). Corporate social responsibility as risk management: A model for multinationals.
McCole, P. (2004). Refocusing marketing to reflect practice: The changing role of marketing for business. Marketing Intelligence & Planning, 22(5), 531-539.