Coca-Cola Marketing

Marketing is known as the activity for creating and delivering offerings that benefit any organization, its stakeholders, and society. Marketing is far beyond simply advertising products and selling them, as it includes not just the organization. Through successful marketing, organizations, stakeholders, and society should all benefit greatly. One an organization comes up with a product; they must come up with a marketing strategy to reach consumers by using the method of the marketing mix, otherwise known as the four P's. Originally named by Neil Borden, it refers to controllable factors including product, price, promotion, and place. Managers can use these factors to solve any marketing problem. Coca Cola, a universal known company, has achieved great success with its marketing mix; catering to the masses for their delicious beverage. Although Coca Cola has had its fair share of marketing struggles and blunders, it has maintained its supremacy in the soft drink world with its clever marketing using the four P's.

The first of the four P's is product. Coca-Cola was created in the late 19th century, originally coined as the first real energy drink. Unlike certain energy drinks today, Coca Cola was created as a beverage that one could drink and have a full moment of refreshment and joy. The company has the widest selection in the beverage industry, which consists of 3300 products. Coca Cola's products are divided into diet beverages, 100% fruit juices, fruit drinks, water, energy drinks, tea and coffee etc. By 2010, Coca Cola was statistically rated the number one brand in sparkling beverages, juice, and retail packaged water. Coca cola has its market presence around 200 countries.

The second of the four P's is price. Although Coca Cola is the most famous and the most popular soft drinks supplier, it is still one of the cheapest to for distributors to buy. This is possible because Coca Cola's follows a low cost production giving the retailers value for money. They are more likely to stock and actively sell their products due to the fact they have the same retail price as the other soft drink suppliers but they get at a cheaper price then the other drinks so they can make the more profits. Also, Coca Cola follows a pricing strategy based on the competitors pricing. With such competitors such as Pepsi, Coca Cola will base their pricing on what Pepsi charges for their soft drinks. With Coca Cola's increasing dominance in the world market, their International operations generated revenue of $14.4 billion, taking their operating income from outside the United States to 80% of their total income in 2002.

The third of the four P's is promotion. Coca Cola has been known for their aggressive promotional strategies in order to gain popularity with the masses. Their promotional strategies start with its own bottle. Their bottle is so unique and unlike any one else's, having different curvature that their label of their franchise would be and to this day is recognizable across the globe. As a matter of fact, the bottle has been trademarked so no imitators can copy Coca Cola's unique design. Coca Cola uses many promotional methods such as in gas stations with pictures of hotdogs with Coca Cola products. The idea of this is that if you are to buy a certain food, why not have a refreshing Coca Cola to go with it. The Coca Cola Company has branched out in their promotional methods far from posters in gas stations. For example, with the emergence of rival company Pepsi, it posed a threat to Coca Cola's empire, which in turn produced some of the smartest and dumbest promotional methods for Coca Cola. When Pepsi first came out, they offered twice as much cola in their beverage than Coca Cola did for the exact same price. Fearing the threat of Pepsi, Coca Cola responded by making larger bottles as big as Pepsi's. Bt 1983, Pepsi began surpassing Coca Cola in sales. Blind tests had people preferring Pepsi to Coca Cola, which in turn took a hit on Coca Cola's sales. Coca Cola responded with one of, perhaps their worst promotional tool. They ended