Coca-Cola- Strategic Marketing Analysis Case Study Solution
INTRODUCTION TO THE COMPANY
The company selected for the analysis of strategic marketing in an organization is “Coca-Cola”. Coca-Cola is a beverage company, which provides diet and regular sparkling beverages and still beverages. The company’s portfolio of brands include Diet Coke , Fanta , Sprite, Coca-Cola Zero, Vitamin water, Power Ade, minute Maid, simply and Georgia. It operates through seven segments: Eurasia&Africa, Europe, and Latin America, Asia Pacific, Bottling investments and Corporate. The Eurasia & Africa segment is engaged in supporting the 2020 vision by delivering broad-based unit case volume growth and delivered double digit volume growth for the year in the areas of East and Central Africa, the Middle East, North and West Africa, Southern Eurasia and turkey. The Europe segment is engaged in developing and implementing packaging and lower-cost First-timer buyer packaging and advancement in the energy drinks category. The Latin America segment attributes its growth from its FIFA world Cup program activation, expansion to other beverages categories, affordability strategies and accelerating market investment levels. The North America segment is engaged in building strong, value-creating brands by well-defined brands, price, and package and channel strategy. The company was founded by As a Griggs Candler in 1886 with Headquarters in Atlanta, GA.
My Role in Organization
I work in Coca-Cola as a marketing manager, my responsibilities are to manage the in-house and external strategies to generate market categories,consumer insight and to identify opportunities and exploit them. I am also intended to work with cross-functional teams to develop winning and profitable marketing mix bundle.I am responsible to monitor the performance and executions by setting and tracking KPIs.I also make sure to work closely with the on field teams to manage and identify the new trends, opportunities, and work with R&D to know and analyze new trends and better solution s for packaging. (vrontis, 2003)
ROLE OF STRATEGIC MARKETING
Before discussing the role of strategic marketing in Coca-Cola, let us have a brief overview on what actually is Strategic Marketing. Strategic marketing has been defined as the management function responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably. Strategic marketing is thus a philosophy and a set of techniques which addresses such matters as research, product design and development, pricing, packaging, sales and sales promotions. A modified definition of strategic marketing followed in Coca-Cola is the marketing is a management process that seeks to maximize returns to shareholders by creating a competitive advantage in providing, communicating and delivering value to customers thereby developing a long-term relationship with them. The role of strategic marketing in Coca-Cola is to develop strategies, build relationships of trust with customers, choosing the right customer (segmentation) and then creating competitive advantage in that particular market segment.
The strategic marketing techniques of Coca-Cola speaks of its success today sustaining in the market with great market share. The strategies that Coca-Cola used in order to build the competitive advantage are:
- Unique market-tasted formula
- The timeless font Logo
- Distribution in property bottles
- High standard relationships with the retailers
- Word of mouth advertising
Unique Market-taste formula:
The company used a very precise set of strategic marketing tools to analyze the markets and to build a unique beverage which people can distinguish among others beverages. For that the company conducted extensive surveys as a part of effective strategy to identify the gaps in the markets and look for opportunities in the already saturated market of US. The company removed the element of cocaine from its original coke yet it maintained other key ingredients in the drink which after the surveys and test launch people admired.
The Timeless Font:
It was the part of a well-designed strategic marketing that the logo of Coca-Cola is imprinted in our minds which can be identified even among thousands of beverages. The proper use of strategic management enabled the company to decide that the logo of the company should remain untouched, because in the long-run people will distinguish Coca-Cola from other beverages on the uniformity of its logo.
Distribution of own-designed bottles:
The company decided to create a unique bottle design that can be distinguished among other beverages and can create the individuality among others. For that the company used plastic bottle which it made partnering and copyright the design with the bottle company.Over here,Strategic marketing enabled the higher management to crate uniqueness of the product even if the product is a commodity.
High Standard Relations with Retailers:
It was the main role of strategic marketing that enabled the company to know the value of its retailers in generating sales and individuality of the product. The company maintained excellent strong relationships with the key retailers to ensure that they prefer and promote their product among others present in store.
Word Of mouth Marketing:
The company used an efficient technique of creating Brand awareness by generating and offering coupons for retailors and also the flags and posters for the shops, it even branded the whole retailor stores “Rd” to generate awareness and brand image all over the country. The company knew that the drinks are the consumable products and Rae very popular with the youth of the country so they targeted the youth by showing fun, emotions, and love in their initial ads and generated word of mouth. (Feloni, 2015)
PROCESSES INVOLVED IN STRATEGIC MARKETING
Strategic Marketing is an extensive process which entails many phases and processes in it. Yet there are 3 main phases of strategic marketing which are used in Coca-Cola. They are:
Theplanning phase is the most important phase as it analyzes internal strengths and weaknesses, external competition, changes in technology, industry culture shifts and provides an overall picture of the state of the organization.In the planning phase ofCoca Cola, the company analyzes the trends and external markets on the basis of 4 key components. These components are:
- SWOT Analysis
- Marketing Program
- Marketing and product goals
- Market-product Focus and Goal setting
Implementation Phase:
The implementation phase is the action process phase of the company. If the analyses that are performed in the planning phase are accurate and have positive results then the company plans to execute the product plan by initially forecasting the sales and budget.Coca-Cola uses following four components to forecast the sales and allocate the budget.
- The management of Coca-Cola develops sums of cash that are required to develop the new product or shift to new markets.
- Designing Marketing organization-The Company focuses on maintaining a marketing hierarchy to properly see the plans to fruition.
- Developing Planning Schedules-TheCompany allocates the tasks to the teams and develops the planning schedules that entails the timings of the launch process of the product and also sets minor goals to be accomplished before achieving and reaching the launch stage.
- Executing the Marketing Plan: The Company then focuses on determining the key elements of the marketing plan, which are the SWOT analysis, 4ps.
Evaluation and Control:
In the evaluation phase, the company ensures that the results of the program are in line with the initial company goals. The marketing team, especially the manager, keenly observe any deviation and quickly correct negative deviation to get back on the course. For example, the fluctuation of dollar in 2003 lesser need of product in the market. (Amy Handl in, 2015) (Anastasia, 4th feb , 2015)
LINK BETWEEN STRATEGIC MARKETING AND COPERATE STRATEGY
Before understanding the link between the corporate strategy and strategic marketing, let’s have the overview of both the strategies.
The corporate strategy primarily focuses on profitability. The corporate strategy includes creating an organizational structure, debt reduction, improving the company’s balance sheet, diversifying the product line to increase profits and reduce uncertainty and losses, and dependence on any one product.
On the other hand, strategic marketing exploits new markets to grab new opportunities, developing products and markets to gain competitive advantage.
Now the point to consider is how they link.Corporate strategy is the firm level strategy that focuses on how to take the business along, while strategic marketing is a function of corporate strategy which helps and facilitates the company to achieve the corporate goals by achieving the marketing goals that are aligned and bench marked with the corporate strategy.
In addition to this, we need to understand that Coca-Cola is made of many departments and functions which we talked about earlier, they are finance, marketing,R&D, IT and production. An efficient organization is only seen when all departments collaborate seamlessly. Corporate strategy is also similar. All departments work closely to achieve the targets that are set by the organization under corporate strategy. For example, if Coca-Cola wants to reduce the cost of labor and production, it will not get the cheap material from other suppliers that will conflict with the marketing strategy and brand image of the company.so the corporate strategy is incorporated in the strategic marketing while setting the goals to achieve the organizational level goals. (keth, 2014) (Sam Ashe-Edmunds, 2014)
VALUE OF MODELS IN STRATEGIC MARKETING PLANNNING
There are 2 types of models that Coca-Cola uses to develop the effective strategic marketing Goals..............
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