Marketing Coca Cola and Dasani in UK MARKETING COCA-COLA'S DASANI WATER IN THE UK

MARKETING COCA-COLA'S DASANI WATER IN THE UK

Marketing Coca Cola and Dasani in UK

The history of Coca-Cola started in 1886 when Dr. John S. Pemberton, a pharmacist from Atlanta, created a drink with a distinct taste, which could be purchased at the soda fountains. He made syrup with flavour, took it to a pharmacy in the neighbourhood and made a mixture of it and carbonated water. His bookkeeper and partner, Frank M. Robinson, is acknowledged for giving the beverage the name Coca-Cola and creating the trademarked unique script that is used to date. Before he died in 1888, Dr. Pemberton traded to different parties with Asa G. Candler, a businessman from Atlanta, who bought the majority shares. Under the leadership of Mr. Candler, Coca-Cola was distributed to soda fountains outside Atlanta. Joseph Biedenharn was the first person to bottle Coca-Cola after he installed machinery for bottling at the back of his soda fountain in Mississippi in 1894. Five years later, bottling in large scale became possible when three businessmen from Chattanooga acquired exclusive rights for the bottling and selling of Coca-Cola. Asa Candler sold them the bottling rights for only $1. Joseph Whitehead, John Lupton and Benjamin were responsible for developing what is now the worldwide Coca-Cola bottling system (Coca-Cola History, n.d)

Coca-Cola launched the Dasani brand water in February 2004 in the United Kingdom and later in Germany and France. Coca-Cola has a plan to conduct a heavy marketing campaign as an introduction to the highly competitive market. The launch of Dasani that took place in the United Kingdom can, however, be considered a...

Before the launch, the Grocer, a magazine, had mentioned that Dasani brand water was just treated tap water. Allegedly, the Sidcup tap water had been processed through reverse osmosis, re-mineralized bottled, branded Dasani and later sold. Although the company never stated that the water was from a natural source such as a spring, this element indeed poses a challenge to the marketing of Dasani since the company had described the water as exceptionally pure. After three weeks, the brand was notified of a scandal which threatened its image regarding quality and food safety. The Food Standards Agency authority had indeed found a bromate concentration in the bottled water. The presence of this chemical could increase the risk of cancer after long-term consumption. Consequently, Coca-Cola immediately recollected 500,000 bottles of Dasani brand water. According to the company, the contamination had initially been caused by adding Calcium as is regularly done but in this particular case, quality standards were not met. Due to this scandal, the company decided not to launch the brand in Germany and France (Dasani water: An example of failure, 2014).
For a new brand, Dasani achieved a lot of success in the U.S. Coca-Cola's large marketing ability and wide distribution network were responsible for this success. In this case, tap water that had been purified and added minerals competed with water for springs and mountain peaks and still managed to win over the customers. For the re-launch of Dasani to be successful, a few changes should be made in the marketing strategy. For a start, there should be a change on the pricing policy. Considering that Coca-Cola can make and transport Dasani to any part of the world, it should be a bit cheaper.…