Marketing Plan for Coca-Cola Marketing Plan for Coca Cola

Coca-Cola, the most valuable brand in the beverage industry has the largest customer base, the strongest brand image, and a huge supply chain and distribution network all over the world. The Coca-Cola Company formulates effective marketing strategies to present its Coca-Cola drink to its most potential target consumers in the local and international markets. Coca-Cola is widely available in more than 200 countries and 6 operating regions of the world. The daily consumption of Coke is almost 1.8 billion regular servings. With its huge scale of operations and the greatest customer base, Coke has become the best seller soft drink brand in the world. The company's marketing strategies play an important role in strengthening its brand image and relationships with business partners and supply chain members. The company always keeps in view its target market, demographical factors, and market needs so that it may produce and offer the products which can best meet the consumer's requirements. It also keeps an eye on the competitor brands which pose big threats to its sales and profitability. The Coca-Cola Company designs its marketing and promotional mix in the light of its marketing objectives, consumer preferences, and industry patterns. The product, pricing, promotional, advertising, distribution, sales promotions, public relations, personal selling, and direct marketing are the major components of the company's marketing mix for Coca-Cola. The marketing objectives of the Coca-Cola Company for its Coca-Cola soft drink include both quantitative and qualitative aspects. The company not only aims to ensure attractive profit margins and revenues, but also wants to build a strong brand image and loyalty among consumers in the new target markets. The marketing plan for Coca-Cola is spread over one year period according to different strategies and actions that are to be undertaken by the company.

Marketing Plan for Coca-Cola:

This paper presents a complete marketing plan for Coca-Cola soft drink. The opening section gives a brief introduction to the Coca-Cola Company; its history, top brands, and scale of operations, and then introduces its most valuable product Coca-Cola. The marketing plan starts with explaining the target market, market size, and description according to demographics, size, and other factors. The next section presents the competitors analysis for this soft drink at the Global level. The most important section of the paper is marketing mix strategies that include product, pricing, distribution, promotional, advertising, public relations, sales promotion, personal selling, and direct marketing strategies. This section has been explained in the light of marketing and promotional strategies which the Coca-Cola Company uses to sell its Coca-Cola drink in the most effective and competitive fashion. The final section discusses the company's marketing objectives and presents an implementation schedule according to which the marketing plan will be implemented.

Introduction:

The Coca-Cola Company:

The Coca-Cola Company is an American Multinational Corporation that manufactures, markets, and sells a wide range of beverages including soft drinks, fruit juices, mineral water, ready-to-drink coffees, tea, fruit sodas, milk- and soy-based beverages, sparkling energy drinks, sports drinks, yogurt drinks, and various other beverage products. Incorporated in 1886 by Asa Griggs Candler, the Coca-Cola Company is now present in more than 200 countries of the world. The company offers more than 3,500 products in 500 brands. The Coca-Cola Company has a strong business network and huge scale of operations with more than 146,200 associates and daily consumer serving of 1.8 Billion. The top brands of the Coca-Cola Company include Coca-Cola, Fanta, Sprite, Dasani, Minute Maid, Ciel, Odwalla, Power Ade, Simply Orange, Fresca, Glaceau Vitamin Water, Mello Yello, Fuze, etc. The flagship product of the company is Coca-Cola which is known as the best sparkling soft drink all over the Globe. Coca-Cola and other brands which use the trademark 'Coca-Cola' or 'Coke' account for more than third-fourth of the company's total sales (The Coca-Cola Company).

Coca-Cola:

Coca-Cola is a carbonated soft drink produced by the Coca-Cola Company and sold in more than 200 countries of the world. Coca-Cola is the world's leading brand and the most liked and valuable product in the beverages category. It is widely available in shops, stores, and restaurants and consumed at very large scale on daily basis. The regular Coca-Cola has carbonated water, sugar, caramel color, phosphoric acid, caffeine, and natural flavors as its major ingredients. Coca-Cola is also available in different flavors and variations like Cherry Coke, Coca-Cola Zero, Coca-Cola Lime, Diet-Coke, Vanilla Coke, Coca-Cola Orange, Coca-Cola Citra, Coca-Cola Bl-k, Coca-Cola Raspberry, Caffeine-Free Coca-Cola, etc. However, some of...

The potential customers of Coca-Cola are those people who wish to drink a high quality soft drink produced by a reputable manufacturer. The Coca-Cola Company markets its Coca-Cola drink to the people from all age groups, genders, income classes, professions, life styles, religions, and cultures. The regular Coca-Cola drink is the targeted towards all age groups while some of its variations specifically target a particular group. For example, Diet Coke, Coca-Cola Zero, Coca-Cola light with Lime, etc. are offered for health conscious and older people. Similarly, energy and sparkling drinks mainly target sportsmen, athletes, youngsters, and active people. The red and white color of Coca-Cola brand also represents youth, energy, and happiness which are greatly helpful for the company in targeting the younger generation at large (The Coca-Cola Company).
Market Need:

Coca-Cola is a soft carbonated drink that can be used in any occasion, season, or time. However, the demand for regular Coca-Cola increases in summer season all over the world. The variations in Coca-Cola drink are also available that are occasionally used by target consumers. For example, the energy drinks are used after physical exercises or games. Similarly, 100% fruit juices, tea, and diet coke meet specific consumer requirements. On the whole, the Coca-Cola Company has introduced a large number of variations in Coca-Cola that meet the needs of all types of consumers including children, students, businessmen, professionals, housewives, sportsmen, athletes, aged and health conscious people, etc. At present, Coca-Cola has the largest customer base among all beverage manufacturers around the Globe with more than 1.8 billion servings per day (The Coca-Cola Company).

Market Description:

Coca-Cola has occupied the largest market segment in the world with a huge scale of operations, sales and distribution network, and customer base. It is the largest manufacturer of soft drinks and beverages. Coca-Cola is present in all the operating regions of the world: North America, Latin America, Europe & Middle East, Asia, and Africa. The greatest market share is captured in the North America, Latin America, and Europe. The Coca-Cola Company owns four of the five best seller soft drink brands of all the times. At the Global level, the demand and sales revenues of the company are largely affected by its pricing, quality, taste, supply, and competitive forces. The Company has made a number of acquisitions during its life cycle which has significantly increased its market share as compared to other industry rivals. The health conscious formulations and flavor variations have also helped the company in snatching the market share from fruit juice and energy drink manufacturers at large (The Coca-Cola Company).

Competitors:

The biggest industry rival of Coca-Cola is Pepsi. It is produced by the second largest beverage manufacturer in the world after Coca-Cola; the PepsiCo Inc. Pepsi is also a carbonated soft drink with same ingredient formulations as Coca-Cola. Pepsi has captured the second largest market share in the world and is sold in more than 190 countries. The beverage industry in which Coca-Cola is marketed and sold is highly concentrated with a large number of manufacturers, competitor brands, and substitute products. In addition to a strong rivalry with Pepsi, Coca-Cola has to face a hard competition from numerous other brands in its different product lines. For example, the major competitors of classic regular Coke are Pepsi and RC Cola. The Diet Coke and Coca-Cola Zero compete with Diet Pepsi, Pepsi ONE, Diet Rite, and Diet RC. The other flavors of Coke also have competitors with same product specifications and ingredients. For example, Fanta and Minute Maid compete with Mirinda, Tropicana Twister, Tango, Slice, Crush, and Sunkist; the lemon-line drinks like Sprite and Lemon & Paeroathe compete with 7 Up, Teem, and Sierra Mist; the citrus-flavored Mello Yello, Vault, and Fresca compete with Mountain Dew, Sun Drop, and Squirt. Similarly, the energy drinks, sports drinks, tea, root beer, and cream soda drinks offered by Coca Cola have their respective competitors in the market. Being an international brand, Coca-Cola not only competes with the top beverage brands of the world, but also with the local beverage manufacturers that sell their products at comparatively low price than Coke products. These small and medium size local competitors are a big threat for Coca-Cola in rural and sub-urban areas (Stokes & Lomax, 356).

The Marketing Mix for Coca-Cola:

Marketing mix constitutes all those strategies which are formulated and implemented…