Marketing Mix for Coca Cola
Introduction
Marketing mix is the approach that a business or a company uses in order to improve on its profits and be able to compete with its competitors. The strategies are grouped into different groups, which include production, price, location, promotion, and place (Doyle, 2006). This strategy is intended to position a company in a competitive edge that ensures it operates in profitable activities. This study will focus on the marketing mix strategy in the Coca Cola Company.
Product
Coca-cola Company is a company that manufactures and markets non –alcoholic soft drinks. The company is known for its outstanding product that is the Coca Cola, which was invented by John Stith a pharmacist in 1886. Because of its current offering of over five hundred brands in more than two hundred countries, the company has amassed a sizeable customer base. The company's headquarters is in the United States of America. The lack of alcoholic contents makes it suitable for consumption by all ages and types of people, which includes parents and their children when they are in parties or elsewhere (Mühlbacher et al 2006).
Its packaging is one factor that makes the product to outdo the competitors’ products. This is because it allows the companies do its business internationally while at the same time maintaining its products quality. Its bottling is done by different companies, which have the authority. This makes its main sources of money for the sale of their products to the bottlers. This system also gives the company an opportunity to serve a large area. There is the emergence of vital competitors in the industry such as milk, coffee, juices and hot chocolate, which are main threats but the soft-drink companies, are remarkably stable and also the consumers are never moved (Doyle, 2006).. The changing health issues made Coca Cola introduce another brand known as the Diet coke in the year 1982 and purified water in bottles.
The choice of the brands by the consumers is exceptionally easy because of the company’s marvelous advertisements of their products. There are many similarities between the brands and consumers as they are made to suit different types of people. An example of these is, if one is highly acidic, there are brands that are made to be used by such people. The different types of brands available are divided into two categories, which are carbonated soft drinks and non-carbonated soft drinks. The carbonated soft drinks are the largest number of products made in the beverages side and are about 77% of the whole volume. These drinks include sprite, Fanta, coke zero that are of different flavors and caloric values (Baker & Saren, 2010).
The noncarbonated soft drinks make up 23%. This has been showing greater growth rates in their consumption than the carbonated soft drinks categories. This is because of the great awareness of healthy products rather than the carbonated drinks. The finest noncarbonated soft drinks include Dasani water, Graceau water, Minute Made to go juices, Nestia, Odwalla, Sokenbicha and Aquarius sports drinks. The branding of the Coca Cola Company is done using the ingredients used and the amount of preservatives used. This gives the different brands different tastes and different expiry times. This makes the products ever in the market (Mühlbacher et al 2006).
Pricing
The soft drinks industry is so competitive because of the many companies in the industry. Since the Coca Cola Company’s aim is to be to provide the products to different types of people that are not only the rich people, the prices are favorable to all customers. The only difference is according to the brand and the sizes. The company also considers the prices of competing companies before it fixes its prices just at the right level just below or above their prices to create a small margin in their price difference. By doing this, the company ensures that it does not lose its customers and it meets its targets economically. In addition to the types of ingredients used the company uses the availability of low materials to determine the prices of its products. The increasing regulation in the United States against the carbonated soft drinks in response to the need for healthy consumption accompanied the need for the reduction of their prices. This is causing a lot of instability although they are dealing with it wisely like reducing the amount of carbon they are using or using alternative preservatives (Baker & Saren, 2010).
The companies pricing can be seen to be controlled by directly and indirectly by several production cost of inputs. Hence, the changes in the costs of these inputs can affect the total company’s production costs and this intern affects the profit margins. PepsiCo is Coca Cola's main competitor internationally and since they offer products that are nonalcoholic and noncarbonated it creates a serious threat (Mühlbacher et al 2006). Competition with the two companies led to reduction in the prices of it products especially the carbonated drinks in order to favorably compete with the PepsiCo Company.
The Coca Cola Company has many price discounts in its various brands of products especially those being introduced to the market. This is done in order to attract more customers to buy the product and in order to make them like the product. This discounts mostly on the price through reduction for some few weeks or months until the new product becomes familiar to the people. It can also be of addition of an item once the customer buys a given number of the item. Her are also other discounts that are offered when customer buys the company’s products in bulk. This occurs when the goods are sold to the customer at lower prices than the normal prices in order to encourage them to buy the goods more often (Haberer, 2010). The other discounts are offered to retailers and wholesalers to enable them sell the products to the other small sellers at fair prices that guarantee profitability.
The company also gives remarkably generous discounts during festive seasons like Christmas season. This is to promote the use of their products during these seasons and also to make it affordable for the unfortunate people who are UN able to purchase these products at the normal prices. It is evident that the company also cares about the less fortunate people in the society, and this makes the company’s image be courteous and noticeable to all the people. This in turn improves the company’s sales therefore, enabling it to compete well with the other companies that offer the same products.
The locations that the products are sold
The Coca Cola products are mostly sold in towns but are also available in rural areas. The reason as to why they are mostly sold in towns or urban area is because there are more consumers and also it is where the population is densely populated. This is particularly valuable to the company as the consumption is high thus the sales are high enough to create a reasonable profit margin. Additionally, in town there are rich people in towns who can buy products in large quantities. Most of the people living in towns earn a salary that can enable them at least by the company’s products at times even if not all the times (Mühlbacher et al 2006).
In towns, there is also less transportation needed for the products to reach the consumers, as they are concentrated in one area. This increases the profit margin of the company because there is less capital and work force needed in the transportation. The company uses the eases profits that are made in the towns and areas where people are densely populated to enable it to transport its products to the rural areas. This is because the people there also need the products as much as they are needed by the people in the urban areas. The company makes sure that there is enough access to their products everywhere in the world, and this makes it an outstanding company hence reading their competitors (Haberer, 2010).
Coca Cola Company also sells its product online to those people who do not want to go to the centers they are sold. By use of the online method of sales, the company substantially saves time and transport costs which could be incurred with the other methods of selling. Online selling is common with people who are exceptionally busy and have no time to go purchase their products. This form of selling increases the number of customers and is also able to serve customers in their will because the products are well listed and described online.
Promotion of the products
Coca Cola Company markets its products through many ways like advertising in radios, TV, newspapers, in the Internet and also billboards. Advertising in radio and television plays a crucial role in enhancing the popularity of the company and enabling consumers to know the exact products that are offered by the company with their various prices. This is well accomplished because the radio and TV are viewed and listened to all over the world (Doyle, 2006). Additionally, the use of newspapers is also another excellent way of product promotion that the company has adapted. This is much helpful because it is able to reach a large number of people throughout the world. The newspapers also help the company to advertise discounts and prices of its products to consumers. The company also uses the Internet to market its products. With this, the marketing messages are able to reach many people at the same time. This is a brilliant marketing strategy because many people are using the Internet every single minute because of the improved technology and modernization (Baker & Saren, 2010).
The company is also using billboards that are set the roads advertising their products. This is helpful because motorists can see them when in traffic and this increases the number of customer’s. Additionally, pedestrians can see them and can become curious to know about the product, and this would lead to more spread of the product, which is the required thing. The company creates meritorious public relationships by offering regular winning draws whereby it rewards its customers (Doyle, 2006).
Conclusion
With the use of appropriate market mix and management it leads to appreciable business with substantial profit margins. In the case of the Coca Cola Company, it has helped them in overcoming the steep competition that they are facing. I would recommend them to continue with the same marketing strategies especially the promotion strategies.
References
Baker, M. & Saren, M. (2010). Marketing Theory: A Student Text. SAGE Publications Ltd
Doyle, P. (2006). Marketing management and strategy. Financial Times Prentice Hall
Haberer, J. (2010). Disneyland International Marketing Mix: International Marketing Mix of
Disneyland Hong Kong. GRIN Verlag Publishing
Mühlbacher, H., Leihs, H & Dahringer, L. (2006). International Marketing: A Global
Perspective. Cengage Learning EMEA
