Now for the final Paper:
Course Project Paper and Video (150 points)
YOU NEED TO COMPLETE THIS RESEARCH PORTION IN WEEK 7!
This assignment consists of two parts, both due at the same time.
Part 1: Paper
The paper must be 10–14 pages and describe the successful use of research to derive insight which, in turn, created a successful approach to the market, whether for-profit or non-profit. Do not just copy and paste paragraphs from the Summary into the Project Paper.
You can reuse whatever content from the previous paper that fits into the new paper. Essentially the intro of the Final paper has the same basic sections as the summary so I see that as a summary of the summary, if that makes sense. The key is to ensure that there is substantive “new content” in the Final Paper. Depending on how long your summary was you might be able to use the whole thing in the new paper…just be sure to include the new required sections.
The sections and format you are to use for this paper follow (USE THE SECTIONS BELOW AS THE SECTIONS FOR YOUR PAPER).
Introduction
Briefly summarize the organization, the research, the insight, and application.
Environment
Describe the context in which your choice increased share of the market/awareness/sales, etc. Was there competition? How did the insights derived from research provide your choice with a unique approach to the market? Increase sales? What are the elements that the organization had to put together in order to use the insights generated through research and analysis? Who were the competitors?
Research and Insight
What was the research? How was it formulated, and what were the methodologies used? Why were these research approaches chosen? How did this particular type of research provide actionable data and information?
Video
Describe the promotional video you have created that connects to an insight derived from the research. How did you come up with the creative approach for the video? What were the key insights you derived from the research to insight to market process?
Conclusion
A course that is worth the investment leaves you with something you can later use. What is the take-away for you, personally, from this assignment? What have you learned that you can use in your career or, for that matter, your life?
Part 2: Video
Write and create a 30-second to 2-minute promotional video that creatively illustrates the birth of the insight that your subject used as the foundation of its remake. How did the research and insight lead to success? The viewer should be able to answer just that question by the end of the video. What matters in this video is not so much the production values—which can be rough, as this is not a course in video production—but its coherence and illustration of bringing an insight from research to market. Do NOT just video yourself talking about your paper.
Project Summary
Paper with edits from the professor
Introduction
Coca-Cola Company manufactures and distributes several brands of soft drinks. Still, for the sake of this paper, I intend to explore the Coke/Coca-Cola brand, which is one of the best prominent brands offered by the company (Austin & Gaither, 2016). The marketing strategy mostly used by Coca Cola is sponsoring an event that mainly attracts large crowds of audience worldwide. Secondly, they make use of distributorship platforms within a region and community with large numbers of field marketers on target sales with high commissions, which give does field marketers motivation to push more to make sales. Coke has a large consumer group because the Coca-Cola Company is very sensitive to its targeted audience, which includes little children. The company is sensitive to the country’s culture that they serve and represent.
Challenges facing coke brand and role of research to mitigate the challenge
The Harvard University Study established that Coke contains a substance such as Caffeine, high-fructose corn syrup, Carbonated water, etc. According to this study, the high-fructose corn syrup makes the Coke brand a health hazard because excessive consumption over time could be linked to obesity, diabetes, and heart diseases. (Austin & Gaittoher, 2016). The study led to the introduction of the soda tax in states like Philadelphia to reduce consumption of Coke, thus decreasing sales of soda significantly in the region.
Another challenge facing the Coke brand is competition from other brands like Pepsi, Britvic, Fever-Tree, Red Bull, Monster Beverage, and Tropicana Products. Nonetheless, the biggest threat and the main competitor of Coke right now Pepsi, which owns brands that compete with every Coca Cola brand. Both companies are multibillion-dollar corporations, and the competition does not hurt either of them. Even with diabetes and sugar vilification, they are covered with their alternative offerings, and presumably, if coke sales fall, they will be boosted by diet coke and water sales (Banks, 2016). Consequently, in case the carbonated beverages go out of vogue, they have several non-carbonated brands to sell. Moreover, Coke faces a threat of new entries emerging into the marketplace, thus making it unable to gain the market share and tries to fill a niche.
To surpass its competitors and remain the giant in the soft drink market, Coca-Cola has significantly performed market research. This heightened market research has enabled Coke to create many memorable advertising campaigns over the years (more in the past than recently); however, none of these would have been successful without Cokes’ most dominating market research and marketing tactic (Austin & Gaither, 2016). Therefore, Coca-Cola invests lots of resources and effort into ensuring its consumers find coke brands anywhere.
Finally, Coke has significantly surpassed its competitors by tactfully using a distribution strategy. The importance of distribution is also evident in the product development of Coke. Coke wok focus on distributing different sizes of product into their existing distribution networks as opposed to creating brand new product. In fact, when Coke has tried brand new product they have faced difficulty such as New Coke in the 80s and Green coke recently. Therefore, distribution has been a powerful defense mechanism for Coke over the years (Banks, 2016). If a competitor produces a new product it is very difficult to get that product into distribution in volume. This is because Coke tends to own the fridge in the store and will not allow competitor products like Pepsi in. However, most of Coke’s business models are disrupted by new digital buying models that deliver products to the customer.
Coke’s Market Research
Market research at Coca-Cola is all about collecting data regarding a particular market, searching for a report at the market, and communicates with the customers. This is a task performed by the company to improve its business in the market. In this Market Research, Coke has several market research methods, and they are categorized in two ways i.e., primary research and secondary research. Coke’s primary research mainly focuses on major techniques in 6 categories, which include surveys, focus groups, interviews, observation, experiments, and field trials (Chhabra, 2016). On the other hand, Coke conducts secondary research, which mainly concerned with collecting data from the existing research and data.
Coke conducted a survey to look at all the popular platforms of trending content, and the study provided the company with the idea of what coke brand mostly used in the market, which is Coca-Cola/coke. This research helped the company to produce more brands to meet the market needs and made Coke achieve Augmented Reality (AR). This all about connecting with the people on a personal level and awakening their emotions and is also about creating more interactive campaigns for the audience (Daniel, 2018). Many companies have adopted it, with the intention of increasing customer engagement for their brand. Coca Cola had made the most of this emerging technology in building brand awareness and customer engagement in a unique way. The mission was achieved with an Augmented Reality campaign, which made a massive engagement and brand awareness.
Market research has enabled Coca-Cola to gain huge customer loyalty. Coca Cola is extremely good at marketing (Daniel, 2018). The company does not brand their products as a product, Coke brands products as the real thing, related to a positive experience. In the late 1960’s Coca Cola changed its brand message from product to “the real thing”, which lasted in different forms to the 1990s (You Can’t Beat the Real Thing). It then changed the message to “Always Coca-Cola” – “Life Tastes Good” – “Make It Real” – “Open Happiness” – “Taste The Feeling” (I’m likely skipping a few here). The loyalty comes from decades of sending “the real thing” message and on top of that, the association with positive feelings.
Therefore, everything else is not Coca Cola. This even backfired to them in the 1980s with New Coke, which did not fit “the real thing.” While there is a niche segment where Coca Cola light fits in, the company is running a long term campaign for Coca Cola Zero, where you can also observe how carefully they are avoiding the “diet” image of light products, trying to establish a more “robust” brand (Chhabra, 2016). Brand loyalty is what makes Coca Cola strong, and the company is very aware of this and takes every opportunity to reinforce consumer loyalty.
Coca-Cola’s Consumer Insights
Market Research has enabled Coke to target every man, woman, child, and senior citizen around the world. Everyone around the world is familiar with Coca-Cola, probably because they consume Coke themselves or consume a variation such as a diet coke. Coca-Cola is more than a soft-drink; it is a national past-time (Gómez, 2019). Also, Coke has been around for more than 100 years, and those who initially drank it for its tonic properties provided by cocaine as an ingredient would still love.
Being the most significant beverage industry around the world, Coca-Cola is the leader of the industry and serving worldwide. Coca-Cola is marketing its products on a mass level (Melton, Damron & Vernon, 2017). The company has even penetrated the market, which is diet conscious i-e, low calories/sugar-free drinks. Therefore, Coke is not targeting any specific segment of the market; rather, it develops its product continuously to address everybody everywhere.
Coke’s market research is indeed, a classic example of mass level marketing (Gómez, 2019). Well, in Coca cola’s case, the nature of their product (which is mainly beverage) determines their Target market. Coca-Cola is amongst the top 10 FMCGs worldwide, so it explains better than an FMCG whose consumption is very high as a whole should have the whole population of the world as their target market.
During the time the Coca Cola rose to popularity, the drink had minimal to no competition, and the sugary sweetness and the presence of cocaine in the original beverage hooked people to it. Today, while Coca-Cola does have many competitors, they have firmly established themselves as a unique soft drink that is often imitated but never replicated. Moreover, Coke is faithful to its vision (Melton, Damron & Vernon, 2017). Aside from taste, the company continues to speak to its consumers. Coke is very sensitive when it creates TV commercials. Coca-Cola has a Global Marketing Strategy that all their country counterparts abide.
Coke’s market research results
Coca-Cola is, by a decent margin, the most popular carbonated soft drink on the market, with around 17% market share versus Pepsi at around 10–11% (Sharman et al, 2019). Other brands such as Mountain Dew have less than 5% market share. The popularity of Coke can be attributed to two main factors: taste and marketing. Coca Cola spends a lot of money marketing their product. In the U.S. alone, Coca Cola spends over half a billion dollars on marketing and more than $3.5 billion globally.
Coca-Cola has been a big brand for a long time now. The company has conquered the market, and that seems to be happening for a long time to come. So makes it this successful with other brands trying to knock it off, but it still stands resilient. The marketing strategy of Coca-Cola is top-notch (Shi, 2019). One thing you should understand is that Coca-Cola does not sell a drink, but instead, they sell happiness in a bottle. Nobody dislikes being happy, of course. Their pricing strategy is also favorable to most people, among many other distinct marketing strategies.
Due to this heighten market research, Coca-Cola has experienced a general increase in its annual sales. The company has retained the No. 3 spot on Interbrand’s annual Best Global Brands ranking for the fourth consecutive year, with an estimated value of $73.1 billion (Sharman et al, 2019). Coca-Cola’s brand produces, sells, manufactures, packages, and distributes the beverage to various partners and customers for resale. That makes Coca-Cola a corporate giant.
The Nestlé and Coca-Cola Company have ended their Beverage Partners Worldwide joint venture. Nestlé is granting the Coca-Cola Company a license to manufacture and distribute NESTEA in Canada, Spain, Portugal, Andorra, Romania, Hungary, and Bulgaria. Coca-Cola Bottling Company is partially owned by TCCC, which operates in 12 other countries. Sol Daurella is a director of other Coca-Cola bottlers, such as Equatorial Western and Northern Africa (Shi, 2019). In addition, she is co-Chair of Grupo Cacaolat, a dairy company that produces Cola milkshakes and is based in Barcelona.
Conclusion
Marketing Coca-Cola has a popular product that is not that much different from it is a competitor’s product. The element that has contributed to the brand’s growth is a history of effective marketing. Through the promotion of iconic imagery, beginning with distinctive shape of their bottle, consistent and ubiquitous use of the color red, memorable jingles and slogans, and nostalgia-inducing illustrations, Coca-Cola is the most recognizable brand in the world.
References
Austin, L. L., & Gaither, B. M. (2016). Examining public response to corporate social initiative types: A quantitative content analysis of Coca-Cola’s social media. Social Marketing Quarterly, 22(4), 290-306.
Banks, H. (2016). The business of peace: Coca-Cola’s contribution to stability, growth, and optimism. Business Horizons, 59(5), 455-461.
Chhabra, G. K. (2016). Case study of Coca Cola’s ekocool solar Cooler; A frugal innovation serving as a source of sustainable competitive advantage in the Rural markets of Northern India. International Journal of Marketing and Technology, 6(7), 119-129.
Daniel, C. O. (2018). Effect of Marketing Strategies on Organizational Performance. International Journal of Business Marketing and Management (IJBMM), 3(9), 1-9.
Gómez, E. J. (2019). Coca-Cola’s political and policy influence in Mexico: understanding the role of institutions, interests and divided society. Health policy and planning, 34(7), 520-528.
Melton, A., Damron, T., & Vernon, J. (2017). A Marketing Strategy from Corporate Social Responsibility: Lessons from Unilever and Coca-Cola Enterprises.
Sharman, A., Larkin, J., Fernandez, I., & Esteves, G. (2019). The Diversification of Coca-Cola: Globalization & Strategic Fit. Journal for Global Business and Community, 10(1).
Shi, Y. (2019). Glocalization in China: An Analysis of Coca-Cola’s Brand Co-Creation Process with Consumers in China.Distribution System Of Coca Cola Company. https://myassignmenthelp.com/free-samples/distribution-system-of-coca-cola-company
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