Marketing Case Study: SWOT Analysis Of Coca-Cola

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Coca-Cola’s goal was to propel Coke to be the number one beverage in the market. In addition, the company looked towards diversifying their portfolio of offerings by introducing other lines of soft drinks. As competitors such as Pepsi infiltrated the market, Coca- Cola lost sight of their company’s objectives. Executives became immersed in other issues such as government allegations, syrup prices, ownership of company franchises and ignored the principle issues such as the marketing and sale of their product.

Ultimately, as they faced stiff competition, Coca-Cola made the mistake of blaming the problem on the product, which led to a sweeter formula that was introduced to the market as New Coke. While during blind tests, New Coke performed …show more content…

They were the first company to stop talking about the product and started talking about the user. Therefore, attracting consumers before they became loyal to Coke.
• Consumers preferred Pepsi on during the taste challenge, which was only one sip.
• Market research could not identify the symbolic value and emotional attachment people had with Coke. It was a symbol of American culture as shown by Gay Mullins, Old Coke Drinkers Association of America leader: “We got it back. Its our heritage. It belongs to us, and we got it back.”

Alternative 1: As identified in the SWOT analysis (Appendix A), Coca-Cola lost sight of its company’s objectives. By realizing the fault in eliminating their advertising budget in half, Coca-Cola could have targeted their ads to the Pepsi Generation.

Alternative 2: Introducing New Coke alongside classic Coke would have allowed the company to win taste challenges against Pepsi. However, by introducing a line extension, it could dilute Coke’s existing sales and put more strain on the company’s bottlers’ …show more content…

As stated by Iacobucci & Churchill, 2010, research design is the framework to collect and analyze data. Coca-Cola’s market research should have included both exploratory (ideas and insights) as well as descriptive (relationship between two variables) parts. Additionally, the market research should have encompasses the consumption of Coke to demographic, geographic and psychographic aspects to further analyze whether the company should tap into the Pepsi Generation or target another market. Furthermore, ethnography, the research in natural setting such as in-home use should have been conducted. If this was the case, the company would have not fallen victim to the results of the taste test and altered the original recipe. Additionally to the market research, the team should have used both individual and group methods for preliminary research and ensured that research results are the same then proceed. Market research is all about asking the right questions. Coca-Cola should have asked participants whether they would give up the original formula for a new one. Instead of asking “Which flavour do you prefer?”, they should have asked “ How would you feel if we changed thee original Coke recipe?”. If this was the case, Coca-Cola could have begun to uncover not only the deep attachment consumers had to the brand as well as realized the sensation transference that came from

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