Soft Drink Wars : Who Does It Better?

Throughout the course of this essay a rhetorical analysis will be performed over the subject of the popular soft drink, Coca Cola. Here we will take a look at two documents, both advertisement images, both from Coca Cola, separated by over 40 years. This sweet drink took the world by storm starting in the 1890’s and has been a household name since. With hundreds of thousands of soft drinks all over the world, Coca Cola is just another in a bucket, except with a different set of tactics toward drawing in their consumers.

In the reading Advertisements R Us, Melissa Rubin expands upon her analysis of Coca-Colas’ 1950 magazine advertisement, and brings many points to light about how the company uses cleverly crafted advertising tactics to appeal to a specific group of Americans. By clearly communicating her evidence to back up the analysis of the advertisement, Ruben composes a thoughtful and persuasive paper. For example, Rubin explains how simple details, such as the use of their slogan on the vending machine pictured which reads “Drink Coca-Cola - Work Refreshed”, and the placement of “Sprite Boy” in the ad, all work together to send a message that makes consumers want to buy their product. Consequently, because of the evidence presented in her writing, Rubin has crafted a paper that I find logical and persuasive.

Coca-Cola’s confidence in its domination over the soft drink industry eroded, and its advertising slogans began to recognize industry competition: “No Wonder Coke Tastes the Best”. While Coke’s slogans have always centered on the product, Pepsi’s advertisement emphasized the users of the product. Rather than targeting every market, Pepsi focused on the demographic environment. Pepsi foresaw the mass appeal of the youth generation for soft drinks and in 1961 divulged the successful slogan “Now, It’s Pepsi, for Those Who Think Young”. The campaign was such a success that Pepsi’s sales growth outperformed that of Coca-Cola.

In her article “Advertisements R Us,” Melissa Rubin notes that Coke’s message in the ad she analyzes is that “Coke will refresh and unite working America” (249). Her evidence for this is based on several things—for instance, right in the middle of ad sits a large Coke machine and the bottom of the ad explicitly states, “A welcome host to workers—Inviting you to the pause that refreshes with ice-cold Coca-Cola” (249). She concludes her article with the insight that “Coke ads helped shape the American identity,” pointing to the underlying message of the ad that Coke can provide the carefree, joyful life it never fails to portray in its ads to everyone who takes a sip (250).

When determining which company has the most to offer it is necessary to look at each set of numbers from several different views. For instance this paper will cover vertical and horizontal analysis, profitability, solvency, and liquidity ratios. I will be explaining how each set of results play into the decision making of which company would be best to invest in, by comparing both companies numbers in able to collect the necessary data to make a calculated decision.

Throughout the course of this essay a rhetorical analysis will be performed over the subject of the popular soft drink, Coca Cola. Here we will take a look at two documents, both advertisement images, both from Coca Cola, separated by over 40 years. This sweet drink took the world by storm starting in the 1890’s and has been a household name since. With hundreds of thousands of soft drinks all over the world, Coca Cola is just another in a bucket, except with a different set of tactics toward drawing in their consumers.

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

As we all go about our day, we rush to place to place. Around us there are things for sale, people everywhere trying to make money. As we are rushing around, we all tend to get thirsty as we have a thousand things going on. In America we have dozens of choices when it comes to soft drinks, although the two most widely known are Coca-Cola and Pepsi. Many are often stuck between choosing Coke or Pepsi; even though they are slightly different in appearance, taste, and price it makes a world of difference to the customer.

The Coca Cola company is perceived to be the most famous trademark on the globe, and it is equally so. The company claims more than 400 brands that appeal to a wide range of individuals throughout the world. They are in a position to fulfill needs of every one of their buyers making their experience with their beverages a better one. The entity’s drinks entice a lot of people across all races, age, and gender. Coca Cola is outstanding for its overall popularity as its items are sold in over four hundred countries in the world, while major contenders like Pepsi are just available in very few countries. Such a competitive advantage has placed

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.

Despite its relation to obesity and other health risk, soda still remains as a popular beverage in the United States, and upon other demographic groups. Amongst the lineup of refreshments, Pepsi and Coca-Cola are the most leading carbonated cola beverage brands around the world. Pepsi and Coca-Cola had been rivals when introduced respectively in the 1900s, trying to dominate the carbonated soft drink market. Through print ads and video ads, both brands were undergoing global advertising war trying to dominate each other. Between the two brands, Coca-Cola seem to be superior to Pepsi due to it’s creative advertisements that grabs consumer’s attention. Coca-Cola portrays rhetorical strategies within the advertisement to catch the audience’s attention by using ethos, pathos, and logos.

Coco Cola advertisement seemed a good choice of texts for analysis because of the nature of Coca Cola’s approach to advertising. The famous logo was created in 1885 and this together with the iconic shapes of the bottle and corporate colours have not really changed since then. The shape of the bottle and logo colouring, instantly identifies it as Coco Cola. The advertisement analysed below is taken ‘Vogue’ Magazine (Issue November 2007) and is for ‘Diet Coke’ which was a new venture for the company in 1982 and within two years ‘Coke’ had become the top low-calorie soft drink in the world. Although “Coke” replaced the traditional name of “Coca Cola”, the red is still used and silver replaces the white

Coca-Cola has been around for generations with the same iconic taste, logo and symbolism. Its brand has represented family and the memories of good times, celebrations and comfort of being with those we love. Unfortunately, the company has not made good marketing decisions in the recent past and has lost relevancy. The purpose of this essay is to assess the conditions that created Coca-Colas marketing problems, evaluate the future of healthy beverages and non-carb drink brand extensions, and provide recommendations to the management.