Case 21 :

Coca-Cola: Integrated Marketing

Communications
Done by: Noor Abu al homos
ID number : 202115042
Course : Marketing strategy
 Overview
• Introduction
• Question1
• Question 2
• Question 3
 Introduction

• Background
About coca cola and it’s history
Marketing Mix of coca cola
Marketing Strategies of coca cola
Integrated Marketing of coca cola
 About COCA-COLA
Since its debut in 1886, The Coca-Cola Company (Coca-Cola) has grown into
a $48 billion multinational corporation.
The company is the largest worldwide manufacturer, marketer, and distributor
of nonalcoholic beverage concentrates and syrups in over 200 countries.
Coca-Cola has thrived for over 125 years.
Today its net income of $8 billion and gross profit of $28.5 billion
demonstrate its financial success.
 History of COCA-COLA
• The Coca-Cola formula was invented by pharmacist Dr. John Pemberton, who sold the beverage at Jacobs’ Pharmacy
in Atlanta, Georgia, for five cents a glass.
• In its first year, Coca-Cola averaged sales of nine glasses a day. Today, more than 1.8 billion servings of Coca-Cola
products are consumed each day in over 200 countries.
• Coca-Cola began promoting its brand with coupons for complimentary samples (a type of sales promotion) as well as
the placement of clocks and calendars displaying the Coca-Cola logo in different pharmacies.
• In 1915, the signature contour bottle was created to be easily recognizable and prevent imitators from copying the
brand.
• The company continued to grow over the years and launched many new products including Diet Coke, Sprite, and
Fanta Orange.
• Evolving from its original promotions, Coca-Cola spent millions of dollars on billboard advertising in rural areas,
along highways, and on the sides of buildings. Today, Coca-Cola’s beverage concentrates and syrups are used to
produce more than 500 beverage brands.
 Marketing Mix of COCA-COLA
Product Strategy of coca cola :
 For 70 years the only beverage created and sold by Coca-Cola was its traditional Coca-Cola product.
 In 1955, Coca-Cola expanded its product offering when a bottler in Italy began selling Fanta Orange.
 Since this time, the company has continued to add a wider variety of beverages and portion sizes for
every consumer that appeals to different lifestyles, life stages, and life occasions.
 Coca-Cola sells more than 3,500 beverages in numerous categories that include regular carbonated
soda, low- and no-calorie sparkling beverages, fruit juices and fruit drinks, bottled water, sports and
energy drinks, and ready-to-drink teas and coffee.
 Prior to introducing a new product to the market, Coca-Cola performs nearly 450 different taste tests
to ensure the ingredients and packaging quality meet the company’s standards
 Price Strategy :
• Coca Cola follows a 2nd degree price discrimination strategy in its marketing mix. In the sense they charge different prices for products in different
segments. The beverage market is considered to be an oligopoly in which there are few sellers and many buyers.
• Coca Cola and Pepsi are the dominant players Coke products are priced similar to that of Pepsi products in that particular segment. If Coke prices its
products too high as compared to Pepsi in a particular segment, then the consumers might switch especially in developing countries where the
consumers are price sensitive.
• Hence both come to an agreement of maintaining price parity in each segment.
• However, Coca Cola offers discounts on bulk purchases by sometimes even bundling the products.

 Place & Distribution Strategy:

• Coca Cola being in the market for more than 130 years and operating in more than 200 countries

 Promotion Strategy :
• The promotional strategy of Coca Cola focuses on aggressive marketing through ad campaigns using media like TV, online ads, print media,
sponsorships etc.
• Coca Cola engages in the following major sponsorship events like American Idol, NBA, Olympic Games, FIFA worldcup etc.
• Coca Cola also launches TV advertisements in various national languages across the globe.
• In India in March 2016, Coca Cola launched “Taste the Feeling” Campaign which seeks out to remind its customers about the joyous and happy
moments Coke brings to their lives. 
 Marketing Strategies of COCA-COLA

• Marketing Strategy is a complete plan of the company which defines how the brand will communicate
with its target audience using several innovative strategies. It uses various offline and online ways to
market itself and reach out to its customers.
• Coca-Cola’s mission and vision statements guide the strategy of the company by describing its business
emphasis and future goals. For instance, its three-tiered mission statement involves
1. To refresh the world
2. To inspire moments of optimism, and
3. To create value and make a difference
Coca-Cola’s vision statement further supports its mission with its emphasis on the six Ps: people, portfolio,
partners, profit, planet, and productivity.
 COCA-COLA 2020 Vision
Coca-Cola created its strategic integrated marketing plan known as 2020 Vision.
While some of the main objectives of this plan will directly benefit Coca-Cola’s
bottom line, other objectives focus on building a strategic business model that relies
on developing and strengthening partnerships while being environmentally conscious.
One of the main goals of the 2020 Vision strategy is to increase Coca-Cola’s servings
to consumers by 3 billion servings per day.
In order to achieve another 2020 Vision goal of reaching everyone in the world,
Coca-Cola will leverage an estimated $4 billion advertising and marketing budget
annually.
 Integrated marketing of COCA-COLA
• Integrated marketing communications refer to the coordination of promotion and other marketing efforts to
ensure maximum informational and persuasive impact on customers.
• Integrated marketing communications also enable synchronization of promotion elements and can improve the
efficiency and effectiveness of promotion budgets. Thus, this approach fosters not only long-term customer
relationships but also the efficient use of promotional resources. Since so many factors are involved in a
marketing strategy, the concept should incorporate all aspects of marketing communications such as advertising,
sales promotion, public relations, and direct marketing to obtain promotional objectives. For this reason, an
effective integrated marketing strategy tends to combine different elements of the promotion mix—advertising,
public relations, personal selling, and sales promotion—that combine more traditional forms of marketing (e.g.,
print advertisements) with newer forms of marketing (e.g., QR codes). Based on the understanding that a unified
and broad strategy is the most effective way to market its brand, Coca-Cola approaches marketing strategically,
using both newer and more traditional marketing media to encourage growth.
• This organizational behavior has become a key part of the company culture of Coca-Cola
and has contributed to its becoming one of the most admired companies in the world.
Although Coca-Cola leverages many of its resources to market its products and brand,
traditional media outlets provide a foundation to build upon.
• These different types of promotion work together as a unified force rather than
individually, increasing the company’s promotional reach. For instance, as part of its
marketing strategy, Coca-Cola has utilized a content marketing technique with
advertisements that cater to specific audiences when promoting the brand. Coca-Cola is
an excellent example of a company that effectively integrates traditional and modern
channels as part of a broad marketing strategy.
 INTEGRATED MARKETING THROUGH
OLYMPIC PARTNERSHIP
“To refresh the world,” as stated in Coca Cola’s mission
statement, highlights the company’s desire to have its
products available everywhere in the world. What better
way to reach mass audiences than to advertise on the
biggest global stage, the Olympic Games? FiFA and world
cup As the longest continuously running corporate
sponsor of the Olympic Games, Coca-Cola has mastered
the art of effectively employing promotion through its
Olympic sponsorship

From early in its history, Coca-

Cola recognized the importance
of partnering with the Olympic
Games as a public relations
strategy.
 TELEVISION COMMERCIAL
ADVERTISING

Although many companies are prioritizing social media and Internet-driven platforms to reach
customers, multinational corporations, including Coca-Cola, continue to see the value in television
advertising. This is an incredibly important marketing channel for the Olympics, as television
advertising is one of its premier marketing platforms because Olympic broadcasts are syndicated
worldwide.
 PRODUCT DISPLAY ADVERTISING IN
Olympic Games
• Among its use of traditional media, Coca-Cola adopts special
product packaging to coincide with the Olympic Games. Its
ultimate goal is to provide information to customers and
other stakeholders to initiate and develop long-term
relationships. Due to its partnership, Coca-Cola receives
sponsorship rights to brand products with the Olympic name
and symbols, such as the rings and torch of the games. This
strategic product placement strongly connects the company
with the worldwide popularity of the Games. Each campaign
also reflects the culture and values of the host country while
distinctly highlighting the Coca-Cola brand. As an example,
Coca-Cola created unique cans for both the London and
Beijing Olympic Games
 LARGE DISPLAY AND SIGNAGE
ADVERTISING
• Traditional marketing includes the use of large displays, such as
billboards, signs, and symbols. Coca-Cola became well known for its
display and signage advertisements during the 2008 Olympics. In
building anticipation for the Beijing Olympics, Coca-Cola created a
50-foot tall, high-tech LED screen version of its classic glass coke
bottle.
• The LEDs were used to display positive messages consistent with
Coca-Cola’s “happiness” marketing campaign that used positive words
to help promote the brand.
 MUSIC AND RADIO ADVERTISING
• For its sponsorship of the 2012 U.K. Olympics, Coca-Cola introduced the
“Move to the Beat” music campaign. The campaign, which started airing
in July 2012, focused on blending the music and sounds of Olympic
events. Coke targeted the campaign toward teenagers, hoping to create
enthusiasm for the Olympics by combining the Games with popular
music.
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 BENEFITS AND COSTS OF THE
OLYMPIC PARTNERSHIP
• Coca-Cola views the benefits as being much
greater. Although an official return on
investment (ROI) is hard to calculate, Coca-
Cola’s sponsorship allows it to build global
awareness of the company over a longer period
of time. Its stated reasoning for continuous
sponsorship goes hand-in-hand with this
concept. Coca-Cola states that sponsorship is
more about building brand awareness and
customer relationships than it is about ROI.
• Coca-Cola integrates traditional and modern marketing strategies in the
Olympics to promote its vast brand assortment and create global awareness. Its
many promotional campaigns during the Olympics have helped make it one of
the most dominant and recognizable companies in the world. The company
effectively integrates a wide range of promotional media, including television
advertising, product display advertising, and digital marketing, to bring its
brand to the attention of Olympic viewers.
• Maintaining and continuing to build one of the most recognized brands in the
world requires constant adaptations and improvements.
Questions
 Questions
1. Why is Olympic sponsorship such a crucial part of Coca-
Cola’s marketing strategy?

• The Olympic sponsorship is a crucial part of Coca-Cola’s marketing strategy because it

serves as a PR strategy. The sponsorship served as a way for the people that watched
the Olympic games to become aware of the brand and come in contact with it. As the
brand became more popular among the public, Coca-Cola decided to change the
strategy from brand awareness to one that centered on content. In a time frame of four
years (from 2008 and 2012), Coca-Cola created and dispersed much more advertising
content and implemented new and more technological ideas such as mobile
applications. Besides the use of these advertisements, Coca-Cola has continued using
traditional forms of marketing and advertising because the availability of modern
technology is limited in many of the countries in which the product is consumed.
 Questions
2. Describe how Coca-Cola uses various marketing tools to
develop consistent and impactful messages during the Olympics.

• One of the most popular ways in which Coca-Cola develops consistent and
impactful messages is through its television advertisements that are known by
almost everybody. These television commercials sometimes feature Olympic
athletes to keep up with the theme of the events, as well as show a positive and
encouraging message. Through these commercials, Coca-Cola appeals to the
emotions of the viewers for it showcases the company’s values. Coca-Cola
also uses music and radio advertisements which focus on blending the music
and the sounds of Olympic events in order to create enthusiasm for the
Olympics.
 Questions
3. What do the marketing issues that Coca-Cola encountered during the 2014 Sochi Olympics imply
about careful planning of promotional campaigns?

• In 2014, Coca-Cola faced major bad publicity when it was a sponsor for the Winter
Olympic games that took place in Sochi, Russia. This was mainly because of
Russia’s treatment of homosexual propaganda, in which Coca-Cola’s digital
marketing campaign was reported to be inappropriate. These types of problems that
affect the brand can lead to the event or organization being sponsored to also get
affected. Because of this, major brands such as Coca-Cola have to be very careful
when planning and implementing promotional campaigns, for people can mistake the
meaning or message that these want to voice through the advertisements. When bad
publicity arises, companies may face huge consequences that can harm them in the
long run. Therefore, when marketing strategies and promotional campaigns are being
planned, they must go through an extensive process in which a lot of thought is put
on them so that no misunderstandings arise
Thanks for listening