Marketing Analysis : Coca Cola

In this assignment I’m going to describe how the marketing research information is used in order to understand customers, competitors and the market environment in a company like Coca Cola. I’m also going to describe how the link between the principles of marketing are applied within the Coca Cola Company and the marketing research activities used by the same organisation.

The market share of soft drink industry actually has to maintain by spending and investing huge amount of money on advertisement and marketing. The advertising cost of Coca-Cola was $3.3 billion in 2012. Such a high cost makes it very hard for a new competitor to survive in the market and expand visibility. Moreover, due to the highly recognized brand name of Coca-Cola, the strong loyal customers’ base would not easy to switch to a new product. Therefore, it is nearly impossible for a new comer to compete in the soft drink industry.

1.The company I chose to research is the, Coca-Cola Company. Their company mission is to “refresh the world” and spread happiness, which can be seen in the media advertising. Although this company is sold in stores, there is the option for online buying as well. Its URL is, http://www.coca-colastore.com. While this URL, is the company’s actual website, http://www.coca-colacompany.com/our-company. This online website allows customers to buy Coca-Cola products “Share-a-Coke” and Coke brand merchandise (Moye, 2015).

Coca Cola was born in the laboratory of Dr. John Pemberton in May 1886 in Atlanta, Georgia. Coca-Cola's own name was made by Frank Robinson. And marketed for the first time with an ad of banners with the inscription of oil paints labeled "drink Coca Cola". Although it was the title of "brand of the century", Frank Robison had experienced a loss in sales. Coca Cola formula then bought by Asa Chandler in 1892 that heavily promoting senhingga experiencing huge profits. Coca cola increasingly global sales thanks to independent bottling firms with licenses to other countries and this is maintained until now.

According to David Cravens and others “Target market is a group of existing or potential customers within a specific product market towards which an organisation directs its marketing efforts”. Coca cola company follow Total market approach; therefore, company develops a single marketing mix and directs it at the whole market for their products.

One of the external factors that have an effect on Coca-Cola is the newer technology. People know that Coca-Cola first provide their product in a form of a fountain drink. It has a fixed ingredient ready for people to get some ice and get Coke from their fountain. But with the advances in the technology today, Coke has invented a new Freestyle soda machine that allows people to create a custom beverage for themselves. Their new machine benefits Coca-Cola because it can shake up the market. It gets people to become curious and want to try it out the new machine. This is an opportunity that could boost the sales for coke and their other fountain drink products.

The use of media has grown exponentially in the last century. Media can take many different forms like radio, newspapers, magazines, television, and websites. It is a form of communication. It

The Coca-Cola Company is one of the largest in the world and the Coke logo is one of the most widely recognized icons in the world. The company used many different marketing campaigns in the years since the company has been created, some being more successful than others. Two such commercials, the Hilltop commercial and the Taylor Swift commercial, both differ in the approaches but are still both successful in their approaches. The first was first aired in nineteen seventy one while the second was first aired in twenty fourteen. I think that the Taylor Swift commercial is more successful than the Hilltop commercial because it better addresses its more specific audience.

Over the years Coca-Cola has produced thousands of advertisements, appealing to the different senses. Along with trying to maintain a broad enough audience, to become the number one soda producer in the world. Starting with the vintage advertisment from 1886, when prohibition laws were being to be passed. This advertisement was placed near drink fountains, and convenience stores where coca-cola was sold in bottles. The second advertisement was published in May 2015, currently circulating inside of the Netherlands. Both of the advertisements attempt to appeal to everyone and anyone, who are in search of personal happiness. Regardless of the century gap, Coca-cola claims to be the drink that produces happiness and relief from the ecosocial problems experienced throughout everyday life.

Brand awareness means how familiar a consumer is with a product or service. Cokes strong self-belief and its consistent advertising helped achieve its position in the market. Coke helped adapt their drink to various markets around the world and they wanted to achieve to satisfy the different tastes of the consumers. This showed great flexibility and innovativeness. Coke is also a very aesthetic product. The design of the product is recognised all over the world. Consumers remember the glass bottle and the red and white can. Even though coke is one of the most recognisable product in the world people still think it is not recognised for the product but for the marketing around it, especially for its commercials. It is one of the most persistent and well-loved brands and is considered among the most

Market research is the process where the marketing problems and opportunities are defined through the information gained from the customers. The Market research is also used to help understand the marketing process, which then helps increase the performance of the company’s marketing. Due to the raise of the public awareness of obesity and its consequences, the soft drink companies such as Coca Cola where heavily bombarded with negative publicity. As a result the sales of many soft drink companies have declined. In response to this major companies such as Coca Cola have embraced the idea of quantitative market research to understand the needs of the consumers. To be able to achieve an effective market research the company has spent around $132.8 million on many methods of retrieving information but one of the main method was by surveys. The surveys have shown that the image of the company was associated with unhealthy products, due to the results that were provided Coca Cola was able to understand that to attract more customer the only solution was to change the marketing plan to re- brand the business into a health conscious business.

Each and every player of soft drink industry mainly targets the age group of 15 to 30. Though some brands only focus to the urban people and some targets only to rural people. Some targets only to female and some targets to male only.

“Nobody has figured out the optimal way to organize a complex global economy. In order to optimally create value, businesses must embrace semiglobalization."

When entering this class, I had no previous knowledge of Market Watch and the stock market. I had know idea that there were websites that informed users in stock market trends, and had tools and games to better train people in investing. My curiousness for the stock market started to grow, because I have never had the opportunity to actually buy stuff and see how it increases or decreases over time. These last few months have been full of obstacles, pertaining to my investments in the game. Overall, I ended on a good note finishing 13th among 51 players, making a little over $36,000. I invested in six very diverse companies.

the streets, on TV and even at school. An example of media and one I