Cola Wars Continue: Coke and Pepsi in 2010

     PepsiCo. Incorporated and The Coca-Cola Company are the two largest and oldest archrivals in the carbonated soft drink (CSD) industry. Coca-Cola was invented and first marketed in 1886, followed by Pepsi Cola in 1898. Coca-Cola was named after the coca leaves and kola nuts John Pemberton used to make it, and Pepsi Cola after the beneficial effects its creator, Caleb Bradham, claimed it had on dyspepsia. The rivalry between the soda giants, also known as the "Cola Wars", began in the 1960’s when Coca-Cola's dominance was being increasingly challenged by Pepsi Cola. The competitive environment between the rivals was intense and well-publicized, forcing both companies to continuously establish and

Rivalry: The rivalry between Coca-Cola and Pepsi is extremely high; however, both companies continue to remain profitable. Prior to the 1980s, pricing wars negatively affected profitability for Coca-Cola and Pepsi. After Coca-Cola renegotiated its franchise bottling contract and both companies increased concentrate prices, the rivalry began to focus on differentiation and advertising strategies. Through creative advertising campaigns, such as the “Pepsi Challenge” where Pepsi ran blind taste tests to demonstrate that consumers

the world. " The Big Three" hold nearly 75% of the market and produce over 8

How did the corporation perform the past year overall in terms of return on investment, market share, and profitability?

What I find to be the biggest indicator of concern is that PepsiCo’s profitability is currently declining, despite its ever-increasing sales figures. It has lost 2% on both its profit margin, and return on assets. The return on common stockholder’s equity, has dipped by 4%, and they lost $.02 over every dollar invested in assets in 2005. This goes back to my assessment of their sales and net income figures. Here again, I see indications that their spending has increased dramatically, which is having a negative impact on profitability. Since the soft drink industry is a high-volume, low-overhead industry, controlling and minimizing expenses is of paramount importance. I find this trend to be very troubling, considering PepsiCo’s sales haven’t stopped climbing, yet they are starting to lose their profitability. Should their sales dip, they will be very hard put to maintain themselves.

3) In which of the following situations would the suppliers have the strongest bargaining power?

For more than a century, Coca Cola and PepsiCo have been the major competitors within the soft drink market. By employing various advertising tactics, strategies such as blind taste tests, and reward initiatives for the consumer, they have grown to become oligopolistic rivals. In the soft-drink business, “The Coca-Cola Company” and “PepsiCo, Incorporated” hold most of the market shares in virtually every region of the world. They have brands that the consumers want, whether it be soft-drink brands or in PepsioCo’s case, snacks. With only one soft-drink market, the two competitors have no choice but to increase sales by stealing the other competitor’s clients. This led to the term, the “cola wars” which was first used

The rivalry between coke and Pepsi is legendary and not just only product development and occasionally get personal collusions which sometimes resonate their marketing and promotional activates.

(a) Why has the soft drink industry been so profitable for concentrate producers? Compare the economics of the concentrate business to the bottling business: why is the profitability so different? [50% points]

So-called Major domestics producers, especially Anheuser Bush, MMBC’s main competitor, are focused on economies of scale in production and advertisement and spend heavily to maintain their own sales level. They dominate the market with 42% of market share in the East Central Region (Case study - Exhibit 3)

In an industry dominated by two heavyweight contenders, Coke and Pepsi, in fact, between 1996 and 2004 per capita consumption of carbonated soft drinks (CSD) remained between 52 to 54 gallons per year. Consumption grew by an average of 3% per year over the next three decades. Fueling this growth were the increasing availability of CSD, the introduction of diet and flavored varieties, and brand extensions. There is couple of reasons why the industry is so profitable such as market share, availability and diversity and brand name and world class marketing.

These two-company’s economic characteristic include their market size and growth rate from the early 2000’s to 2010. Coke and Pepsi have struggled for years in the carbonated and non-alcoholic sector. According to Barbara Murray (2006c) "But as the pop fight has topped out, the industry 's giants have begun relying on new product flavors and looking to noncarbonated beverages for growth.” (Murry, 2006). For instance, Coke boasts in the advertisement as the king of the soft drink; as a consumer of both products, I agree. About 15 years ago, I was selected to participate in a critiquing of Coke and Pepsi products. Additionally, my travel to Africa in 2007 and 2010 provided the same raving review for the Coke Cola products. Apparently, Coke and Pepsi have been rivals for ages locally, regionally, nationally, multinational, and globally, therefore, one expects them to have an on-going rivalry when marketing the high-energy beverages.

The case explains the economics of the soft drink industry. There activities that add value to consumer at nearly every stage of the value chain of the soft drink industry. The war is primarily fought between Coca-Cola and PepsiCo as market leaders in this industry; who combined have roughly a ninety percent market share in their industry. The impact of globalization on competition has allowed both of these major players to find new markets to tap which has allowed each continued growth potential.

Controversies, Infobase Learning, 26 July 2010, http://icof.infobaselearning.com/recordurl.aspx?ID=2311. Accessed 20 Feb. 2017. This source was written in order to discuss the benefits and harms of using artificial sweeteners in place of sugar. This article was published in the Issues and Controversies database; therefore it has been used in academic writing previously. We can conclude that the source is unbiased and credible. It compared the high health risks of sugar to the very low health risks of artificial sweeteners. Also extensively covered, is the history and development of artificial sweeteners, and the opposing opinions on both. This source is lengthier than many similar ones, and contains more factual information and research-backed claims. Of all the sources, this one supports the thesis the most by providing

The CSD industry has undergone many changes, while Coke and Pepsi continued to maintain their positioning as the official competitors and dominant market players. The key trends in the industry include: