Coca Cola Promotional activities over time.

Brand Promotion is any communication that attempts to influence people to buy products or services. The different promotional activities of Coca-Cola throughout the history of almost 129 years of the company have a major and significant impact on society as well as on the culture. The logo as well as the designs of Coca-Cola bottles have been recognized throughout the world and are significant to the image.

The four main tools of promotion are advertising, sales promotion, public relation and direct marketing. The main aim of promotion is to ensure that customers are aware of the existence and positioning of products.

A shift in marketing dollars from advertising to sales promotion, the rapid growth and development of database marketing, and the fragmentation of media markets are among the key changes taking place. Promotion is best viewed as the communication function of marketing. The inherent advantages and disadvantages of each of these promotionalmix elements influence the roles they play in the overall marketing program. In developing the promotional program, the marketer must decide which tools to use and how to combine them to achieve the organization’s marketing and communication objectives.

Coca-Cola Promotional Strategy

For many years, the promotional function in Coca-Cola was dominated by mass-media advertising. However, more and more companies are recognizing the importance of integrated marketing, coordinating the various marketing and promotional elements to achieve more efficient and effective communication programs.

 The Coca-Cola company announced last year 2021 that they will focus their strategy from primary broadcast communications (Mass Media Advertsing) to create an ecosystem of experience for their audience and customers. The Coca Cola company is also changing the presentation of their logo and adopted the new line tagline “Real Magic” (Banutu-Gomez, 2012). Through various promotional marketing communication mix, the Coca-Cola will communicate with the consumers. The channels Coca-Cola has used includes TV advertising, social media, radio, paper print, PPC etc. which is known as Marketing mix whereas small companies stick to two or one channel of marketing to reach their target audience and customers because they risk diluting their focus and budget.

The average amount of money Coca-Cola spends on its promotional advertising campaigns globally is approximately $4 billion. They spend this much each year despite their huge investment in product development and innovation as well as other companies (Fort & South, 2022). While Many carbonated soft drinks company enjoyed strong retail performance in the year 2021, Coca-Cola Zero, one of the products of Coca-Cola company was the only product to double its volumes sold (Mintel, 2022).

Coca-Cola admits engineering a new type of low-calorie sweeteners that can be mass-produced in fermentation tanks and recently developed and patented a process for manufacturing recyclable plastic bottles made entirely from renewable plant-based materials to aids its market promotion. (Mill & Carolina, 2022).

Coca-Cola and PepsiCo are dominant brands around the world; other major companies in UK include Britvic (UK), Cott (Canada), Red Bull (Austria), and Suntory (Japan) (Mill & Carolina, 2022).

While industry leaders Coca-Cola and Keurig Dr Pepper have struggled to adapt to shifting consumer tastes, smaller soft drink makers have carved out a market for natural and organic sodas. To address consumer concerns about the environmental impact of standard PET plastic bottles, Coca-Cola introduced a biodegradable bottle made from plant-based materials in a bid to aid its promotional activities (Mill & Carolina, 2022).

After the sharp decline seen in 2020, sales of carbonates in vending machines increased in 2021, although remained far from 2019 levels. With consumers becoming more confident spending time outside the home and slowly going back to their routines, with constant travel, sales of carbonates in vending machines are expected to start to increase on a yearly basis from 2021 onwards (Passport, 2021).

In 2017, Coca Cola Great Britain created a recycling-focused advert called “Love Story”. The ad, which involved a set made entirely out of recyclable material, depicted two plastic bottles falling in love over and over again – all thanks to the magic of recycling. With Coca Cola recently announcing that it aims to collect and recycle the equivalent of all its packaging by 2030 – the campaign was a notable example of the brand stepping up on this issue. (Econsultancy, 2018).

In 2018, The Coca-Cola Foundation announced it had given back more than $1 billion to communities worldwide since its inception in 1984. (The Coca-Cola Company, 2018)

Conclusion

Coca-Cola has focused more on Mass Media Advertising making the product a low involvement product fir consumers. To move the product to an experiential involment product, it needs to run promotional campaigns that evokes feelings(emotion). Thus, emotional message appeal communication will be used in all media.

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