MARKETING MIX OF COCA COLA

Marketing decisions generally fall into the following controllable categories:

Product

Price

position

Place (distribution)

Promotion

PRODUCT STRATEGY OF COCA COLA

Product: Anything that can be offered to a market for attention, acquisition, use or

consumption that might satisfy a want or need.

LEVELS OF COKE AS A PRODUCT

CORE PRODUCT

Core benefit is that it fulfills the thirst.

ACTUAL PRODUCT

Design: Pet bottles, returnable glass bottles, economy packs.

Quality: Quality differs with respect to country for example. Coca-Cola Can quality that

is available in Middle East is certainly different as compared to Coke Can available in Pakistan.

PRODUCT CLASSIFICATIONS

Coke is categorized as a convenience product, because the purchasing rate is very high

and this is the product that is bought very frequently.

INDIVIDUAL PRODUCT DECISIONS

BRANDING

BRAND EQUITY

As far as coke is concerned brand equity for the customers is very high. People are highly

brand loyal.

BRAND STRATEGY

The following is the brand strategy of Coke

LINE EXTENSION

Line extension occurs when a company introduces additional items in a given product

category under the same brand name. For example if Coke introduces new flavors and package

size, it will be considered as line extension.

Brand

Product

Existing

New

Existing

Line extension

Brand extension

New

Multi-Branding

New brands

BRAND EXTENSION

Brand extension means using a successful brand name lets say Coca-Cola and then launching

new product for example cherry coke. This was an example of brand extension.

MULTI-BRANDING

It means introducing additional brands in the same category. For example Coca-Cola not

only introduced coke as a brand but also sprite and Fanta.

DIVERSIFICATION

It means introducing new product with the new brand name. It means diversification but this

is something Coca-Cola has not adopted for as yet.

PRODUCT LINE DECISIONS

PRODUCT LINE LENGTH

It means the number of products that company is offering. For example Coke, Diet Coke,

Fanta, Sprite etc.

PRODUCT LINE FILLING

Product line filling means that earlier when Coca-Cola started it had only one flavor of

coke available and that is classic coke but with the passage of time company filled the product

line by adding diet coke, diet lemon etc.

PRICING STRATEGY OF COCA COLA

The amount of money charged for a product or service, or sum of the values that

consumers exchange for the benefits of having or using the product or services. As price gives us

the profit so this P is very important for business price of product should be that which gives

maximum benefit to the company and which gives maximum satisfaction to the customer.

Following factors Coca Cola kept in mind while determining the pricing strategy.

Price should be set according to the product demand of public.

Price should be that which gives the company maximum revenue.

Price should not be too low or too high than the price competitor is charging from

their customers otherwise nobody will buy your product.

Price must be keeping the view of your target market.

The price of Coca Cola, despite being market leader is the same as that of its competitor

Pepsi Cola. Sometimes, Pepsi places its customers into some psychological pricing strategies by

reducing a high priced bottle and consumers think that they save a lot of money from this.

PRICES OF DIFFERENT BOTTLES

Size of Coca Cola Price of Coca Cola (RS.) Regular bottle 12

Non returnable or disposable bottle 25

1.5 liter bottle 60

2.25 liter bottle 70

Coca Cola can 30

PRICING STRATEGIES

COMPETITION BASED PRICING APPROACH

Coca Cola has intense competition with Pepsi so its pricing can’t exceed too much nor decrease

too much as compared to the price of Pepsi Cola. If price of the Coca Cola exceed too much

from the Pepsi then people will shift to the Pepsi Cola and on the other hand if the price of Coca

Cola decreases people might get the impression that its quality is also low.

PROMOTIONAL PRICING POLICY

Coca Cola has offered promotional prices very frequently. Especially on some occasion

Coca Cola reduces its rates like in Ramzan Coca Cola reduces its rate unto 5 Rupees on 1.5 liter

bottle.

MARKET PENETRATION PRICING POLICY

Prices in beverage industry are determined by the consumer. In an economy like that of

Pakistan, consumers tend to switch towards a low priced product. Coca Cola’s objective is to

target every consumer of the country so Coca Cola has to set its prices at such a level which no

one can offer to its consumers. That is why Coca Cola charges the same prices as are being

charged by its competitors. Otherwise, consumers may go for Pepsi Cola in case of availability

of Coca Cola at relatively high price.

DISCOUNTS

Coca Cola offers various discounts to those retailers who have the maximum sales of

Coca Cola products on daily, monthly and on seasonal basis. Some of the main discounts given

to the retailers are as follows:

QUALITY DISCOUNT

Following are discounts offered by Coca Cola.

1/10 DISCOUNT

I.e. one case of Coca Cola is free on buying 10 cases of Coca Cola at one time.

2/20 DISCOUNT

I.e. two cases of Coca Cola are free on buying 20 cases of Coca Cola at one time.

SEASONAL DISCOUNT

Following are discounts offered by Coca Cola.

Coca Cola also offers seasonal discounts schemes by reducing price in Ramadan and on

Eid. Coca Cola also offers trade in allowance for retailers.

3 B – F DISCOUNT

I.e. sometimes, especially in the off-season duration, in order to increase the sale of Fanta

and Sprite, 3-BF discount is given (i.e.) 3 bottles free on purchasing every case of Fanta and

Sprite.

INCENTIVES

Mainly two types of incentives are given by the Coca Cola:

INCENTIVE TO RETAILERS

Coca Cola provide various incentives to retailers on the best sales and achieving the

predetermined sales targets. These incentives are in the shape of:

Deep Freezers

Return Tickets

Free Transportation Services.

INCENTIVE TO DEALERS

The first, second and third best dealers of the year are awarded.

CREDIT

There is no credit system in the beverage industry. Every single bottle is sold on the cash

basis.

SPECIAL OFFERS

Coca Cola gives special offers to consumers on special occasions like Ramadan and Eid

days instead of decreasing the price of the products, some special packs like Pakkora Mix, Chat

Massala, or Free Drinks with Liter Bottles are offered.

POSITIONING STRATEGY

The way the product is defined by consumers on important attributes, the place the

product occupies in consumer minds relative to competing products.

Price

More

Same

Less

Benefits

More

Same

Less

Here if we talk about more price and more benefits, we can discuss Coca Cola and Pepsi.

As both are the market leaders and 90% market share of Pakistan beverage industry is secure by

them & the rest 10% is secure by the rest.

And we can also take Coca Cola and Pepsi as challenger for each other as both of them

provides more for same, more for less & same for less. As they are giving their customers more

benefits for same price and also more benefits for less price with respect to different packaging

sizes.

Others colas like Mecca Cola, Amrat Cola and Mountain Dew are offering same for same

price and same benefits for more price. They are using followers strategy, as they follow the

other market leaders and giving their customers same benefits for same price. Others colas like

tha bottles (local colas) are offering less benefits for same price and less benefits for less price.

As they have no existence in market and their products have no position or we can say very

badly positioned in consumer minds.

LOGO OF COCA COLA

Logo is what establishes a brand name in the consumer mind. It is the brands identify,

signature, image and more often it is a logo that makes of breaks a product logo plays a very

effective role to improve the product or brand. Coca Colas kept on changing its logo from time to

time along with the trade marks.

PACKAGING & LABELING OF COCACOLA

Packaging means the activities of designing and producing the container or wrapper for a

product.

Traditionally packaging decisions where based primarily on cost and production factors,

the primary function of the package was to contain and protect the product the product. In recent

time, however humorous factors have made packaging an important marketing tool. These

factors include all acting attention describing the product making the sales.

Packaging involves designing and producing the container or wrapper for product. The

package may include the product’s primary container a secondary package that is thrown away

when the product is about to be used and shipping package necessary to store , information

appearing the product labeling printed information appearing on or with the packaging is also

part of packaging. Label ways rouge from toys attached from product to the complex graphic that

identify the product or brand, such as the product the label weight also described several things

about the product that made its contents how it is to be used.

Coca-Cola products, almost all of them are available in bottles of 250 ml, 500 ml pet jar,

1000ml, 1500 ml and 2000 ml bottles as well as 330 ml cans.

The advantages of packaging are as follows

In strip packaging there is aluminum foil on both the sides. Strip packing is done

for providing stability to those products which are having less productivity.

In facilitating branding and advertising of products.

In serving as a silent salesman. It induces the buyers to make re order.

It has got display value.

It helps the seller to increase his sales and obtained higher prices than he could get

from unpacked good.

Printed literature containing “Instruction to use the product” can be easily passed

on to the consumers by putting in the package.

Packaging given the product a prestige an individually and identity which the

goods sold in loose form do.

LABELING OF COCA COLA

Labels may range from simple tags attached to products to complex graphics that are part of

the package.

Labeling is mainly done in order to promote the product through attractive graphic. In the

“Coca-Cola” company, the labels are provided with bottles.

PROMOTION STRATEGIES OF COCA COLA

GETTING SHELVES

They get or purchase shelves in big departmental stores and display their products in

those shelves in that style which show their product clearer and more attractive for the

consumers.

EYE CATCHING POSITION

Salesman of the Coca Cola Company positions their freezers and their products in eye-

catching positions. Normally they keep their freezers near the entrance of the stores.

SALE PROMOTION

Company also do sponsorships with different college and school’s cafes and sponsors

their sports events and other extra curriculum activities for getting market share.

UTC SCHEME

UTC mean under the crown scheme, coca cola often do this type of scheme and they

offer very handy prizes in it. Like once they offer bicycles, caps, TV sets, cash prizes etc. This

scheme is very much popular among children.

DISTRIBUTION CHANNELS

Coca Cola Company makes two types of selling

Direct selling

Indirect selling

DIRECT SELLING

In direct selling they supply their products in shops by using their own transports. They

have almost 450 vehicles to supply their bottles. In this type of selling company have more profit

margin.

INDIRECT SELLING

They have their whole sellers and agencies to cover all area. Because it is very difficult

for them to cover all area of Pakistan by their own so they have so many whole sellers and

agencies to assure their customers for availability of Coca Cola products.

FACILITATING THE PRODUCT BY

INFRASTRUCTURE

For providing their product in good manner company has provided infrastructure these

includes:

Vizi cooler

Freezers

Display racks

Free empty bottles and shells for bottles

ADVERTISEMENT OF COCA COLA

The field of advertisement is one area where Coca-Cola has always emphasized.

In year 2000 Coca-Cola unveiled the biggest advertising billboards in the history of

Pakistan. Each unveiling was marked by entertainment and light shows watched by thousands of

people. Similarly in July 2000 Coca-Cola launched its first under the crown promotion by the

name of Dream Vacations in which the consumers could collect caps of promotional bottles of

Coca-Cola like Sprite, Fanta and Coke.

ADVERTISEMENT OBJECTIVE

Type of advertising with respect to product life cycle that Coca-Cola adopts is reminder

type. The reason behind this fact is that coke is such a product that is at the maturity level

currently so for such a product companies mostly go for reminder type of advertisement so that

they can penetrate more and more and same is the case with Coke.

SETTING OF ADVERTISING BUDGET

Coca-Cola sets its advertisement budget on the basis of competitor based budgeting.

Major competitor of Coca Cola is Pepsi and as Coke realizes that Pepsi has increased its

advertising budget, straight away Coca-Cola management plans to do the same so that they can

compete in advertising department as well.

ADVERTISING STRATEGY

Before creating advertising message the Coca-Cola Company gives lots of time to the

factor that the message must gain customer attention. This is basically called “Clutter Buster”

means that only that advertisement will leave impact on customer mind that has some specialty

or uniqueness in it. For example in India Coke current slogan “Thanda Matlab Coca-Cola” has

gained reasonable customer attention.

ADVERTISEMENT MEDIA

Coca-Cola Company advertises its products mainly coke through electronic media that

includes Television, Radio and Internet as well. Moreover leading newspapers of Pakistan are

also the targeted by coke for advertising. So we can say that coke not only uses electronic but

print media for advertisement as well.

Coca Cola Company use different mediums Print media

Pos material

TV commercial

Billboards and holdings

PRINT MEDIA

They often use print media for advertisement. They have a separate department for print

media.

POS MATERIAL

POS material mean point of sale material this includes: posters and stickers that are

displayed in the stores and in different areas.

TV COMMERCIALS

As everybody know that TV is a most common entertaining medium so TV commercials

are one of the most attractive way of doing advertisement. So Coca Cola Company does regular

TV commercials on different channels.

BILLBOARDS AND HOLDINGS

Coca Cola is very much conscious about their billboards and holdings. They have so

many sites in different locations for their billboards.