Nowadays it is rather complicated to find a person living on the Earth who
does not know what “Coca-Cola” is. This multinational corporation,
which operates worldwide, has won the hearts of millions of customers living
on all continents. Coca-Cola is everywhere. It is sold in huge supermarkets
located in big cities and towns, it can be found in small local shops who serve
only several hundreds of people and also it can be found in the smallest inhabited
localities, which have electricity in them to supply Coca-Cola’s vending
machines. Everything began more than a century ago, in 1886, when a pharmacist
from Atlanta, Georgia, named John Pemberton invented a “delicious, exhilarating,
refreshing and invigorating” drink that claims to be one of the most popular
brands now, and the most popular soft drink. At the moment Coca-Cola is operating
in nearly 200 countries worldwide and continues to attract even more customers.
Coca-Cola was the first to enter the Soviet Union market, where it also received
consumers’ recognition.
Being one of the loyal consumers of Coca-Cola, and its soft drink “Coca-Cola
Classic” I have chosen this company in order to speak about the reasons
of it extensive popularity among consumers all over the world. The main goal
of this paper is to speak about the strategies Coca-Cola used and still uses
to appeal to the consumers.
How can a company attract new buyers? The answer is rather simple – to
introduce new product to the market by means of advertising. Advertising is
what makes it possible for everybody to get to know about goods produced inside
the country (domestic products) and beyond its borders. Advertising is one of
the most significant, powerful and effective tools, which helps to attract customers
and, thus, increase sales and profitability of any business. Advertising is
itself a profitable business, on which huge sums of money are spent annually.
The main purpose behind any advertising is to gain extensive publicity within
potential customers, because people will not be interested in buying something
unless they heard about or tried certain goods and services. Coca-Cola is one
of the few companies that used this tool of marketing to its fullest extent.
Coca-Cola’s advertisements have always been very creative, bright and
carried certain message to the consumers, making them brand loyal.
Indeed, creation of brand is the essential element of product marketing, which
determines product’s success or failure in the market. Brand is a certain
image, symbol that identifies one product from another. Coca-Cola created a
powerful brand, using red and white colours, which are now mainly associated
only with Coca-Cola. Brand is what helps the consumers to identify the product
they would like to buy. Three main benefits of brands include profit, ability
to register a trademark by means of brand and avoid being copied by some other
company, and customer loyalty. It is very important that company is distinguished
from others, however, this is considered to be a short-term goal. A long-term
goal for any company is to make consumers loyal to the brand. This is rather
time and money-consuming process, which involves a lot of hard work and creativity,
however, the results of it might be outstanding. When customers become brand
loyal the possibility that they might switch to a different product is minimum
under any circumstances.
There is no doubt that it is necessary for a company to stimulate the customers
by conducting certain promotion campaigns. The main difference between advertising
and promotion is that the latter induces consumers to buy something by means
of certain incentives. For example, the company put its products on sale after
reducing the price, it can offer consumers to buy several products and present
one for free, or offer to collect bottle caps and receive some little souvenirs.
All of this stimulates consumers desire to buy.
Coca-Cola has been wisely using all of the mentioned above marketing tools,
including advertising, promotion, creating a brand and attracting loyal consumers.
However, there is another special strategy that the company uses in order to
gain wider publicity and increase sales volumes. This strategy lies in the creation
and extensive usage of slogans. Throughout the years the company was using the
slogans to reflect the benefits of Coca-Cola Classic. Almost every year new
slogans appeared and were accompanied by new advertisement campaigns. Some of
the most famous slogans are: “Things Go Better with Coke”, “I’d
like to Buy the World a Coke”, “Always Coca-Cola” and others.
The company invited some celebrities to advertise their product, such as Bob
Hope, Bill Cosby (advertisement campaign called “Have a Coke and a Smile”),
which added even more success. Coca-Cola Classic has been advertised everywhere
– on TV, on radio and in the newspapers, gaining more and more publicity.
Having studied some of the strategies the Coca-Cola company uses I can now understand
why I became one of its loyal customers. Coca-Cola created a well-recognized
brand for its product; it developed and continues to develop and conduct well-considered,
appealing to consumers advertising campaigns; it also once in a while conducts
promotion campaigns, which induce the consumers into buying more. Having become
a loyal consumer I’m going to keep buying products of Coca-Cola, especially
Coca-Cola Classic, as it satisfies all of my demands in terms of what a drink
should be. Also, it is necessary to underline the fact, that even though it
is quite understandable how Coca-Cola attracts loyal customers, it does not
estrange them from remaining loyal, because it only involves strategies that
are legal and do not go against human morality. Conversely, I should say that
people who develop advertising campaigns and create slogans for Coca-Cola are
very professional, talented and deserve respect.
Bibliography
1. Coca-Cola Advertising Slogans
http://www.solarnavigator.net/sponsorship/coca_cola_slogans.php
