Marketing Communications
I strongly believe that advertising is very effective and that it works extremely well helping the companies to promote and sell their products to the general market. Advertising is considered to be a promotional tool which is used by the companies to promote their products by them-selves in the market. Advertising is the paid form of non- personal presentation of a product or service or an idea and it is the enhancement of sales of these ideas, products or services. Advertising includes different kinds of specific tools like commercials, print ads, broadcasts or billboards etc. When any company is advertising its products to the general public, it needs to make sure that the ad itself is artful and that is it uses visuals, print, sound effects and colors to make it more appealing to the broad audience. The commercials need to be extremely colorful, very appealing, to have nice visual and sound effects, to be catchy so that they would appeal to customers of all age groups and would attract them to the companys products.
Beverage Industry
The industry that the Coca Cola Company operates in is the soft drink industry. The soft drink is a beverage which does not contain alcohol. These are carbonated drinks also known as soda, fizzy drinks or soda pop. The carbonated drink bottlers are under the considerable pressure from the side of the gas companies. The soft drinks market is the largest market in the world and it has the highest consumption rates per capita. The highest level of soft drinks consumption is registered in the US. Coca Cola is the leading company in the carbonated soft drinks market, having a 60 market share and being closely followed by PepsiCo.
It is the bottler network which makes the drink a success or a failure. And it is the bottler network which has made the soft drink industry a success. The soft drink industry actually uses a considerable variety of multiple outlets, which help to make a difference between numerous types of retailers and also help with saturating the market with a certain product. With the intensive distribution channel, a soft drink manufacturer receives considerable coverage, customer recognition and a high turnover. But it must be remembered that, if a company applies an intensive distribution strategy, it would have to face a tough competition.
Company Background Coca Cola Company
The largest beverage company in the world is Coca Cola Company it is also the largest manufacturer, distributor and marketer of non alcoholic drinks. The company is known for its product, Coca Cola, which was invented in 1886 by John Smith Pemberton. The formula was bought in 1889 by Asa Griggs Candler, who later on created the company, in 1892. The company has over 400 different brands in more than 200 countries around the globe. Besides, its namesake product Coca Cola, the company has other varieties of non alcoholic beverages which are linked with Coca Cola.
The company is known throughout the world due to its logo, which is very eye catching. The logo itself is a part of a promotional strategy by the company for advertising the product, the it is easy to remember and it establishes itself the minds of the customers in such a way, that wherever they see it they associate it with the company. The logo was created by Frank Mason Robinson in 1885, who was a bookkeeper of John Pemberton. Frank Robinson played a very important role in the advertising of the product. He produced ideas, like giving free drink coupons to customers, plastering publicity banners all over the City of Atlanta, for the promotion of Coca Cola. Today, Coca Cola Co. spends more than 2.5 billion on promotion (i.e. advertising etc.) on all of their products every year. (Coca Cola 2010)
Effectiveness of Advertising
Advertisements are considered to be effective if they manage to deliver the message the advertiser (in our case Coca Cola Company) created to the public at large and consumers respond (by buying Coke), as this was intended by the advertisers . But to become effective the ads need to communicate the message that motivates the consumers to respond in a certain way.
To move consumers to action, Coca Cola Company needs to gain the attention of the audience. This is generally done through ads the ad must ensure the public interest long enough to convince the consumers to change their buying behavior and try the product. If the ad is entertaining (for example, HYPERLINK httpwww.youtube.comwatchvIJGg9jIWr60httpwww.youtube.comwatchvIJGg9jIWr60) the audience will remember it and when they out for purchasing soft drinks they will remember coke and will ask for it. The effective of advertising can increase the popularity of a certain product in the market.
One thing that needs to be remembered is that advertising of the product needs to be purposeful or else the advertisement will not be effective at all. Determining effectiveness depends on setting a goal in terms of the impact the Coca Cola Company hopes to create in the minds of their customers who read, listen and see their ads in magazines ads, radio commercials and television commercials respectively (Duncan 2005).
Promotion
Promotion is one of the four elements of the marketing mix tools. Promotion is the only means where the merits of a product and service can be communicated to the customers through advertisements, direct selling or sales promotion etc. For example, The Coca-Cola Co. spends more than 2.5 billion on promotion on all of their products which used to include Coca-Cola black, every year.
Marketing can be defined as a social and managerial process where individuals or groups of people get what they want and need through the exchange of products and services with others. The best way to promote a product is through the use of the marketing mix which brings all the areas of marketing into one (Sandhusen 2000).
The first thing the company does when promoting Coke, is creating a marketing message the second step is developing a set of marketing options like, advertisement, speaking or writing etc. There are different forms of promotion like advertising, sales promotion, public relations, personal selling and direct marketing. But it must be remembered that communication it not just only about these promotion tools but even more. The products size, design, color, price, the retail outlet where it is sold, also communicate something to the customer about whether to purchase the product or not, for example, Coke can communicate trough the design of its bottle, its flavor, for instance, diet coke, cherry coke, vanilla coke, coca cola zero, coca cola black, and diet cherry coke etc., the price of the Coke also plays an important role in the promotion of the product as well.
The promotion strategy which is mostly used by the company is the pull strategy, where Coca Cola spends a considerable sum of money on advertising (print media and online advertising) their products in this way Coca Cola is able to build up the consumers demand, for example, Cherry Coke. And if the strategy becomes a success then the consumers will demand from their retailer for Cherry Coke and the retailers in return will demand the product from the wholesalers and the wholesalers would demand it from the producers. In the pull strategy the chain works in a backward fashion (Sandhusen 2000).
Advertising
Coca Cola Company uses intensive advertising to promote its products to the general masses all over the globe. Coca Cola resorts to different kinds of advertising to attract their customers towards their soft drinks and juices. Coca Cola uses print, online and other kinds of media for promoting their products.
Print Media
Coca Cola Company has mostly used the reminder advertising, this kind of advertising is highly important for mature products like Coca Cola. For example, four-color Coca Cola ads in magazines or in news papers have the purpose of not informing or persuading the customer, but these ads remind the customer that they have to buy Coke. The company uses the reinforcement advertising that makes the buyer believe that he or she has bought the right beverage regarding the choice between it and its competitor, which is PEPSI. (Duncan 2005)
Concerning print media there is a limited amount of advertising, because the company has to pay huge amounts of money for a limited space in a newspaper or a magazine. It is also very important that the company is portraying a positive and not a negative message in its ads. The ads would have to be colorful and highly appealing, with the right kind of style, tome, words and format or else it would not catch the eye of the reader. There should be personality symbol present in the ad like the logo of the company. Some of the print ads of the company are as follows-
Online Marketing The internet as we know is a global web, which connects approximately 45,000 networks, and this interconnection has made the global communication possible. Coca Cola is one of those companies which have setup online information (about their company and products) and marketing services (like advertising). Why have online services become so popular Online services provide a number of benefits to marketers like Coca Cola. The company can build up the relationship with their customers. That is, online marketers can communicate with their customers and learn about them and their preferences and in return the consumers can learn about the company by downloading it history, the work it is doing for the society etc (Duncan 2005).
Coca Cola is able to size up their audiences. That is Coca Cola marketers learn that how many visited the companys site and how many stopped at a particular place on the website, so that with that information the marketers of the company are able to improve their offers and ads. Website of Coca Cola (Coca Cola The Official Website).
The customers will be able to get information about the company very quickly. The company can put up ads on online billboards the ads can pop up when the user is using the service, even when the user did not ask for an ad. Coca Cola has launched its ads on youtube.com. When users visit the website, they will be able to view the ads of coca cola. Like the ad of holidays are coming has been put up on youtube.com another ad which has become quite famous that now is floating on YouTube, this ad is called the Coca Cola Happiness Factory (Duncan 2005).
Integrated Marketing Communication
One of the biggest trends that affect advertising is the development of the integrated marketing communication (IMC). Integrated marketing communication is expanding the scope of what we have referred as the new advertising. IMC is the practice of unifying all marketing communication tools so that they are able to send a consistent, persuasive message promoting companys goals (Dole Lowe 2008).
The practice of advertising will continue to evolve as the dynamic industry adjusts to changes in the environment with less emphasis in the non-personal and mass-media elements and more on interactive communication as well as more sense of advertisings place within a coordinated program of communication efforts (Dole Lowe 2008).
Advertising Strategies
There are different strategies which are related to advertising, but in the case of Coca Cola Company it uses the undifferentiated marketing segmentation.
Undifferentiated Marketing Segmentation
Segmentation is not always the optimal approach. It may be that a single product and appeal will be equally effective for everyone. Naturally, this type of strategy requires substantial resources. The Coca Cola Company would be considered to be pursuing an undifferentiated marketing segmentation strategy with Coca Cola (in other words Coke). The product name, package and advertising are designed to appeal to virtually everyone (from a child to an adult). It could be argued, however, that the Coca Cola Company, too, has moved away from a pure strategy of un-differentiation, with their product Diet Coke, different flavors (for example, Cherry Coke, Vanilla Coke, New Coke or Coke II etc.), caffeine free versions, and new brands aimed at new segments (for example, Fruitopia, OK Coke etc.). Such a move is partly natural evolution for a company like Coca Cola Company. As a product class gains maturity, consumer needs often become more specialized and a segmentation strategy is a natural response of manufacturers of Coke to these needs (Dole Lowe 2008).
Marketing Mix
The marketing plan of the company is that it is making sure that the consumers and the beverage market are aware of the existence of Coca Cola and to do that the company has adopted marketing mix. Marketing mix can be defined as a set of tools for marketing purpose that the company uses, so that it can achieve its marketing goals and objectives in their targeted market. The marketing mix is also known as the 4Ps. The 4Ps include the following-
Product product variety, quality, design, features, brand name, packaging, sizes, services, warranties and return. Coca Cola provides its customers products ranging from water to soft drinks to juices to energy drinks. The companys product are Minute Maid for health conscious people, Coke Zero for weigh conscious people etc (Kotler 2005).
Price list price, discounts, allowances, payment period and as well as credit terms for its customers. The price of the companys product is quite affordable, the company ensures that all people within the society are able to buy the product.
Promotion sales promotion, advertising, sales force, public relations, direct marketing and the company also uses its catalog for promoting of their products worldwide. The company uses internet for its promotion along with the TV ads and magazine ads as well.
Place the company uses channels, coverage, assortments, locations, inventory and transport for its product. The place which is mostly used by Coca Cola is the shelves of the supermarket and the logo of the company has made it quite easy to remember the product (Kotler 2005).
Measuring Advertising Effectiveness
It is important for Coca Cola Company to find out whether a certain product (for example, Diet Coke) is effective or not. Advertising can be measured in the following ways
Survey research
In-depth interviews
Focus groups
Observation research
Internet and virtual research
Conclusion
Any person reads, watches, listens to and looks at advertisements starting from his or her childhood. An advertisement is a complex form of communication that operates with the objectives and strategies leading to various types of impacts on consumers thoughts, feelings, and actions. In general, an ad works if it creates an impression for a product, influences people to respond in some way and separates the product from the competition in the mind of the customer this will help make the ad effective.
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