Coca-Cola's Marketing Communication Strategy: A Critical Analysis (2024)

The Coca-Cola Companyis an American corporation, and manufacturer, retailer, and marketer of non-alcoholic beverage concentrates andsyrups.The Coca-Cola Company offers more than 350 brands in over 200 countries, aside from its flagshipCoca-Colabeverage.

Types of Media used to Promote Coca-Cola

Media can be divided into two categories, published media and visual/aural media. Published media includes newspapers, magazines, trade and professional press, and the internet. Visual and aural media includes television, radio, cinema, posters, billboards, and direct mailing.

Various types of media are used to advertise the Coca-Cola brand in general, and Coca-Cola drink in particular.

Published Media:

1. Newspapersare one of the most popular forms of media advertising that is widely used by Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola Company is one of the companies that has starred media advertisem*nt in its earlier stages, and by now the company has been engaged in media advertising for more than 100 years.
2. Magazinesare widely used at a global level to advertise Coca-Cola. The magazines are chosen according to their readability by the target customer segment of the company. These advertisem*nts usually occupy an entire page of the magazine to maximise the positive impact of the marketing initiatives.
3. Internetis another platform where the various forms of Coca-Cola advertisem*nts are placed. Specifically, the brand’s online advertisem*nt is undertaken through the extensive use of banners, pop-up ads, on-site sponsorships and various other forms of online advertisem*nts in thousands of websites along the globe. There are also various forums and websites dedicated to Coca-Cola fans, where users can share their stories involving Coca-Cola.

Visual and Aural Media:

1. Coca-Cola has been advertised throughtelevisionin many countries. Coca-Cola features different ads in different countries. These ads are prepared considering the local culture to avoid any misunderstandings due to the differences in the culture of different countries.
2. Coca-Cola is also advertised incinemaand this is undertaken in two ways. Firstly, Coca-Cola video advertisem*nts are played in cinemas before the movie starts. Secondly, Coca-Cola is advertised through product placement in movies, wherein the drink is featured somewhere during the movie and the efficiency of the product placement is maximised by showing the drink being consumed by the lead role.
3. Coca-Cola radio advertisem*nt usually lasts only a few seconds, but is considered to be efficient in terms of increasing brand awareness and customer loyalty.
4. Posters and billboardsare also widely used as an integral part of the Coca-Cola media promotion. The billboards are usually placed at the city centres and highways around the globe as well as some parts of the rural areas. Posters, on the other hand, are normally displayed at the public transports, shops and restaurants.

Objectives of Coca-Cola Campaigns

Coca-Cola advertisem*nt campaigns are launched to achieve specific objectives. The company’s main objective is profit maximization and these advertisem*nt campaigns contribute to the achievement of this objective in several ways.

1. Creating awareness of the company and its products.
2. Informing and educating consumers and buyers.
3. Encouraging a liking for the company’s products over those of the competitors'.
4. Encouraging product trial among potential new customers.
5. Increasing short-term sales by the means of stimulating action.
6. Reassuring customers and reinforcing their particular desirable buying behaviour.
7. Generating information from customers.
8. Creating sales lead.

Analysis of Message conveyed through Coca-Cola Advertising

Coca-Cola marketing campaign materials have been devised according to the messages they aim to convey, and images, words and sounds featuring within them have been perfected by marketing professionals to serve the same purpose.

Messages sent to promote Coca-Cola can be classified into three categories:

1. Coca-Cola helps to best satisfy the thirst

Coca-Cola tries to communicate that it satisfies the thirst in the best possible manner. However, a range of scientists as well as marketing authors cast a doubt about the ability of Coca-Cola to satisfy the thirst efficiently and argue that ‘thirst’ for Coca-Cola has been created by the company’s marketing professionals. In other words, ‘thirst’ created for Coca-Cola is fundamentally different from the natural thirst for water, and the ‘thirst’ for Coca-Cola is more a want than a thirst in a virtual meaning of the word.

2. Drinking Coca-Cola is stylish

Kotler and Keller states that the most effective marketing messages are presented by companies as a solution to a problem potential customers experience.

According to Freud, in whatever they do people are motivated by the willingness to be great.

This can be viewed as a problem and a need that needs to be satisfied. Specifically, some people aim to satisfy the need of the willingness to be great by trying to be stylish and trendy and associating themselves with established, famous, and successful personalities. Coca-Cola uses this fact by paying famous individuals perceived to be successful to publicly associate themselves with its products. As a result, people purchase these products to satisfy their desire to be trendy and stylish.

3. Drinking Coca-Cola is part of a lifestyle.

Coca-Cola tries to make the customers believe it is a necessary component of everyday life. This is done by exposing the potential and existing customers to intensive marketing campaigns through various channels.

Analysis of Success Associated with Coca-Cola Marketing Initiatives

There are various criteria against which the success of a marketing campaign can be assessed. One of them is through customer loyalty, market share, and the amount of revenue that were generated because of the marketing campaign.

Evaluating from the criteria of customer loyalty, Coca-Cola marketing initiatives can be considered to be highly successful. There are millions of people worldwide who consume Coca-Cola regularly.

Every second of every day, people everywhere – 13,000 of them – pop open a Coca-Cola product’.

Interbrand has rated it as one of themost valuable brandsin 2017.It ranks 3rd among product brands with the most Facebook fans as of April 2018 with 107.42 million fans.

When evaluated based on market share criteria, the company is selling its products in more than two hundred countries, employing 61800 employees and is a market leader in most of these markets.

From the point of view of profitability, Coca-Cola was able to generate 35.41bn USD from operations during 2017, partially because of its effective integrated marketing strategy.

Conclusion

Having an effective integrated marketing communications strategy and the efficiency to implement it are necessary for a company’s long-term growth. Coca Cola relies on media extensively to conduct its integrated marketing communication strategy. The choice of media used by the company includes newspapers, magazines, internet, television, cinema, radio, posters and billboards.

Analysis of images and words used in Coca-Cola marketing campaigns has identified that these marketing efforts aim to communicate three types of messages; Coca-Cola helps to best satisfy the thirst, drinking Coca-Cola is stylish, and drinking Coca-Cola is part of a lifestyle.

However, all these benefits that Coca-Cola is offering its customers are only perceived benefits. The statement that Coca-Cola satisfies thirst better than any other drink is justifiably under high degree of suspicion. It is also clear that Coca-Cola does not make anyone stylish, trendy and cool in reality.

Even though Coca Cola offers mainly perceived benefits to its customers, with the effective choice of components of integrated marketing communication and their efficient use, the company was able to become one of the most successful multinational corporations in the world.