A global leader in the beverage industry, the Coca Cola offers a list of soft drinks, juices, sports drinks, and many more variants of drinks. As big as the brand is, it is natural that millions of its revenues will be going to marketing, but how much exactly? Let’s have a look at all the details of coca-cola, including its branding and marketing expenditure.
Key takeaways:
- Coca-cola is the largest spender in the marketing and branding when it comes to the beverage industry of any kind.
- Just in the last year, it spent almost a whooping $6B dollars on its marketing and branding. It is virtually 2B dollars than its closest competitor, PepsiCo.
- While it is known worldwide in every household, Coca-cola keeps spending on its marketing as it has never been there.
History:
Coca-cola’s initial success came through a soft drink that made it a household name. Invented by Dr. John Pemberton, back in 1886, the marketing was paramount for Coca-cola. The first drink was prepared by mixing cocoa in cola nut, all in carbonated water. The first two C’s of Cocoa and Cola seemed like a brilliant idea to them in aspect of the designation of brand name, and ultimately Coca-cola came into existence.
Its bottle, since day one, has kept evolving, and each of them has proved to be a success among the customers. Due to the highly competitive nature of the beverage industry, a lot of credit goes to the marketing of coca-cola for its worldwide recognition. Let’s now move more into the nitty-gritty of its marketing.
Commitment to spend on ads:
Coca-cola makes yearly pledges to the spending on an advertisement, and that too, with an exponential increase every year. For example, as compared to 2017, Coca-cola spent $1.5B more in 2018. It plans the same for the year 2020, and it is all down to the fact that more spendings on advertisement bring more revenues for Coca-cola.
The large spendings have also helped coca-cola in hitting the new areas of the market. It is due to the excessive marketing that Coca-cola has introduced new products
Comparison to significant competitors in soft drinks
Coca-cola has far surpassed its competitors in terms of marketing spending. For example, PepsiCo spent $4B on its marketing in the fiscal year of 2018 and yet lagged Coca-cola by an amount of almost $2B.
In the United States, through the first quarter of the year 2019, Coca-Cola’s market share was 42.5%, with a brand value of $80.9B.
It is also essential when we consider the amount being spent on marketing; we should look it under the shadow of the brand’s total worth. For example, a brand with a net value of $1B should not be spending half of it in the marketing. The gradually a brand grows more prominent, it should increase the amount it spends on marketing with the same ratio.
Parallel to competitors in the Alcohol Industry
Similar to the sodas, the alcohol industry spends a lot on its marketing. For example, an Alcohol giant, Anheuser-Busch, spent almost $1.5B on its advertisement worldwide in 2018. It tells you how big of a brand coca-cola has become, with it spending nearly five times more than the leading alcohol brand.
Although there is a direct correlation between the spending and the market share of a brand, it is not necessarily an arithmetic and proportional relation when it comes to the total size of the market.
Let’s say; a consumer has already decided to buy a beer, an ad then can manipulate the customer to buy a particular beer of a specific brand. These ads do not target the customers to purchase the product in the first place if they haven’t already decided to buy it.
Marketing Strategies
Coca-cola has, over the years, proved many marketing norms wrong, and have succeeded with its style of marketing. For example, it is an internationally recognized phenomenon that targeted marketing is more effective than mass marketing.
Coca-cola, although, has proved it wrong time and again, with almost its entire marketing using the mass marketing strategy. While, on the one hand, it is the worldwide recognition of it that makes it marketing more effective, on the other, we can not deny the uniqueness that it comes with every time.
You can see an example of effective mass marketing in the picture above. Similarly, it has used competitive marketing strategies like using the lines ‘’They don’t make ’em like they used to. We do’’. These small, yet witty lines have been a trademark of Coca-cola, and they are mighty useful.
Bottles of the Coca-cola over the years
Bottles of coca-cola have always been the primary marketing tool for it. Just like all other food & beverage boxes, Coca-cola bottles carry the message of the brand across the globe. These bottles have got a lot in them, in fact, 130 years worth.
Starting from a soda fountain beverage for 5 cents per glass, Coca-cola we know today is due to these bottles. They made Coca-cola what it is today, and they keep on doing so with the varieties of these bottles that keep popping in the market.
But these bottles were not always a priority of Coca-cola. In its initial years, the founders of Coca-cola wanted to continue only as a fountain supply and thought the bottles would end the uniqueness of Coca-cola. It was not until 1915-1916 when Coca-cola officially introduced its beverage box &the contour bottle that we know today.
Green Bottles & Your Name Bottles
In the second decade of the 21th century, Coca-Cola, like all the other major brands, started thinking about going green with its bottles and fulfil its corporate responsibility of saving the environment. It has since introduced green bottles that are 100% recyclable, and are made of plant and sugar cane materials.
Similarly, it has custom boxes and the bottles lately and has created ‘your name’ bottles, which has individual common names written on them. It is to provide a more personal touch to its users, and it was a great success.
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