Coca Cola Integrated Marketing Strategy

Discuss about the Coca Cola Integrated Marketing Strategy.

Introduction

The Coca-Cola is an American multinational firm whose headquarter is located in Atlanta, Georgia. The multinational enterprise specializes in the production, distribution, and sale of soft drinks. Coca Cola produces syrup, which is then sold to bottlers and retailers worldwide. The company has more than 200 branches in various countries across the globe, and it has diversified its products into more than 500 brands (Booms & Bitner, 2011).   Some of the popular Company’s brands are Coke, Fanta, Krest, Sprite, Stoney, and Alvaro. To achieve its target goals, the American firm has aligned its organization culture towards it’s a strong competitive strategy. The main sets of values, beliefs and behavior that form the Coca-Cola Company’s culture are motivation, teamwork, effective leadership, and product, which have contributed to its success in the brand. As such, this paper will focus on the marketing strategy of Coca Cola Company and how the strategy has given it a competitive advantage in the market.

Company background

The main objectives of the Coca-Cola’s marketing strategy are based on the need of satisfying the customer needs, tastes and preferences. As such, the Coca Cola has heavily invested in promotion and marketing of its brand name products all over the world. Integration of various promotional and marketing techniques has helped Coca Cola Inc to reach out to consumers in various geographical locations across the globe and thus, expanding its market share in the non-alcoholic drink (Noble & Mokwa, 2011).

The company stands to be leading in the non-alcoholic drink industry globally, and it is closely followed by Pepsi Inc which is a key competitor. Coca-Cola’s brand name and culture have been imperative in maintaining its consumer base as well as international market share. For its maintenance of its unique logo and the exceptional packaging of its products in unique glass bottle, the company has been successful not only in retaining its loyal customers, but also attracting potential consumers to utilize its diversified products (Smith, 2016).

Marketing selection

Technology, culture and skilled workforce

These marketing strategies helped the company to position itself as made the most popular Company with high-quality brand products brands in the international markets. The presence of an efficient organizational culture, a competent team of talented and ambitious managers, Culture, system, high-level technology, structure capacity are key contributing factors for strategic competitive and success of Coca Cola Company. Technology is a crucial factor of production. A business organization that utilizes more advanced technology gets a competitive advantage in the market as a result of the efficiency and low cost of production, which are benefits accrued to the high level of technology (Burgesmani, 2015). Moreover, use of modern technology contributes to high levels of productivity as the company is able to produce at any given time. On the other hand, application of the low level of technology in the production process is associated with increased wastages and low quantity and quality of product. Therefore, inferior technology inhibits have negative effects on the competitiveness of the company can lead to its failure. Coca Cola is such of those companies that have to utilize high levels of technology in all its operations including production.

The production process which entails making of syrup concoction, uses high technology to ensure that the chemicals used re mixed in right proportions to ensure that the products of the desired quality which can satisfy the tastes and  preferences of consumers. Also, the production department has invested in the state-of-art machines that carry out most of the production work. Therefore, the company has few human labors in the production process, an aspect that has helped it to reduce operation costs and wastages (Duffy, 2015). One of the goals of Coca Cola Company is to maximize profits. This is only achieved by ensuring that the company identifies and responds appropriately to the needs of the consumers in the market.

Marketing mix

The company has incorporated a variety of marketing techniques also collectively known as marketing mix. For instance, it utilizes product promotion techniques such personal selling, online marketing, personal selling, personal selling and advisements. Coca Cola has created its website for marketing its products. The website content is well organized to facilitate search engine optimization of the information. As such, the site has a high traffic jam which enables it to be easily accessed by online users. This, in turn, makes it access to the consumers of the product’s company as well as potential customers (Smith, 2016). Also, the company website has also enhanced its corporate image to the world by providing essential information to the stakeholders.

Marketing platforms

The internet is a crucial component in facilitating the communication of the organization as well as the media audience itself. With the rise of new communication and social media, the Coca has managed to improve on its marketing techniques. As a marketing tool, social media is imperative for the success of the Coca Cola Company in the global market. It is a platform that that has been employed by the company in the promotion of brand products with the objective of increasing its market. Like other multinational retail firms such as E-Bay and Amazon, Coca Cola has based most of its marketing activities on the internet. That has reached through the services offered by the internet. The Company has made use of YouTube as an online platform for advertising its products (Smith, 2016).

The company partners with popular celebrities such as music artists, movie stars, and footballs in advertising its products on YouTube. It uses popular movies and songs posted on YouTube to advertise its commodities. This strategy has attracted the young population because they are the majority users of internet services (Freeman, 2010). Use of popular celebrities as brand ambassadors of its products has helped the Company to penetrate through the market by attracting more consumers and thus gaining a competitive advantage in the non-alcoholic drinks industry. The traditional methods of marketing are phased out by new marketing strategies due to the dynamic advancements in technology especially in the telecommunication sector (Mcquail 2015). The soft drink manufacturer Coca-Cola Company has significantly used this type of media to increase its grip on its customer base. It has invested a lot of its revenue in promoting its products through the use of such media.  Coca- Cola uses many different media such as its official website, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and some much more such platforms in the actuation of its marketing needs.             

Consumer motivation

The motivation of the consumers is such an integral element in maintaining and increasing the sales of a product. Coca Cola Company values its esteemed customers and as such, it works around the clock to ensure that it gains consumers’ loyalty. As such, Company takes parts in social activities that are highly valued by its customers as a strategy of product promotion. The Company sponsors various activities that are aimed promoting various talents among the young population. For instance, the popular Coke Studio show which is carried out annually aims out seeking talents among young artists (Maslow, 2013). The show provides a platform for upcoming music stars in Africa to show their skills. Also, the Company uses the show to identity talented artists and sponsors them to develop their talents in the music industry. Also, the company is known to sponsor popular sports tournaments and championships across the world. For instance, Coca-Cola was the main sponsor company of the Fifa world cup 2014 which was held in Brazil (Hollensen, 2010) Sponsoring such mega championship provided the opportunity for the Coca to market its products to the world and establishes a positive public image.

Harmonious functioning

Business enterprise works as a system that is composed of various interrelated components function together harmoniously to attain the set goals the company. Each section of operation has an effective on how other parts of the system function (McQuail, 2010). As such, there should exist an efficient working relationship between various components of the business system in production, sales, procurement, logistics, and marketing. The presence of a competent team of managers within the business organization has enabled Coca to coordinate all its business activities across the globe and thus making it work a one system (Klein, Frazier & Roth, 2010).

The Coca-Cola brand has been able has helped the company to penetrate the global market. The brand has several platforms and websites which serve the function of creating a positive image of the company to the consumers. The platforms are designed with the aim of representing the culture and philosophy of Coca Cola, as well as increasing its international market share (Michael, Duane & Robert, 2011). It utilizes such platforms to communicate new offers, new products, and the latest news to the customers. The company social uses social media platforms such as twitter and Facebook to engage with its clients so as to get feedback from the market, which is important in decision making and strategic planning. The general perception of the public is that Coca Cola provides high-quality products which are designed based on the vast variation in tastes and preference of consumers. The positive reputation Coca Cola across the globe has hit many newspaper and magazine headlines and online.  As such, the Company also uses utilize these newspapers and online magazines to promote the brand name (Napoli & Philip, 2011). The pricing strategy of the company also plays a crucial role in its success. As a result of the stiff competition in the market, Coca Cola uses the prevailing market price to determine the price of its products. As such it sets the price of its products slightly lower than that of substitute products offered by its main competitors such as Pepsi Inc (Dickson & Ginter, 2012).

Supply chain

Another aspect that has given Coca Cola a competitive advantage in the industry is its supply chain. The company utilizes a cost-effective and reliable supply chain in transportation and distribution of its products across the globe. The company does not directly take part in the supply of its products to the consumer but rather, it uses distribution and supply third party companies. The company has decided to concentrate on the production of its products, which is its primary activity, and outsource other services to the third party enterprises (Edwards, 2016). For instance, the company has stabled bottling companies in each country whose role is to manufacture bottles and other containers and package the drinks on behalf of the company. It uses logistic companies to distribute the drink from the production centers to the bottling companies (Teece, Pisano & Shuen, 2010). The bottling companies are also given the role of distributing the products to the retailers or partner with other distributors. The supply chain system has helped the company to specialize on the production process and thus reducing the transportation costs and shifting the risks involved in some of its operations to third party companies.

Recommendations

Although Coca Cola has made a significant breakthrough in the international markets, it experiences a few challenges and weakness that need to be addressed as a mechanism of helping it move to the next level. The company uses a lot of resources and time in promotion and marketing activities. Such expenses increase its operation costs which in turn increase the cost of its products. As such, the company should consider cutting the cost of its promotion and marketing activities to reduce operation costs which will help them to offer products at to relatively low prices and thus, increasing its market share (Belch & Belch, 2011).

Conclusion

In a nutshell, the success of the Coca Cola Company has been having been achieved through the development of advertisement and strategies such as pricing strategies, online marketing public relation, personal sales. Such strategies have helped the company to attract more consumers of its products in the international markets and gaining a competitive advantage. However, huge investment in marketing and promotional activities has resulted in increased operation cost and therefore, it is important for the company to cut some of the costs arising from promotion and marketing. The leading multinational enterprises such as Amazon, Coca Cola, Microsoft Inc and Peps Inc have aligned their goals with effective marketing strategies which help them to gain a competitive advantage. Coca Cola Company has managed to penetrate into the international markets as a result of utilizing an efficient marketing strategy in its operations.

References

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