Coca-Cola was founded by John Styth Pemberton in 1886. Who would have thought then, that Coca-Cola would be the money maker it is today. The company is the world’s leading manufacturer of beverages, operating in more than 200 countries across the world. The company produces more than 500 beverage brands and over 1.06 billion drinks are consumer per day all over the world.
Coca-Cola has always put effort towards maintaining a good customer to company relationship. They want their brand and products to be a part of peoples daily lives, to be some what of a ritual attached to specific or special moments, and they use social media in order to create emotions and feelings of affiliation towards customers. In order to do this, the company uses integrated marketing communications (IMC), which is used to communicate with its target customers/market. This plan is changed and adapted by how the market, society, potential, and product positioning all change.
Currently, the communications that are organized by the firm include: advertising, direct marketing, interactive/ internet marketing, sales promotion, public relations, personal selling, and sponsorship marketing. Advertising is extremely important for this company, this is because its giant customer base is so global. In order to do this successfully and bring abroad new customers, the company uses influential advertising techniques. The slogans used in the Coca-Cola ads are very catchy and relatable, they create a permanent impact on the viewers.
Mediums of Advertising
As we discussed in the previous paragraphs, Coca-Cola uses advertising to create awareness among the potential customers about their products. The have different mediums of advertising that are displayed around the globe.
Direct Marketing
Direct marketing can be used in many ways, just like advertising. It does help when the company has partnerships with various theaters, restaurants, and multinational organizations. Below is an example of a Coke commercial that a typical movie theater will show before its feature showing starts.
Also, when a customer orders a drink, the only brand the restaurant offers is made by the company itself. This forces people to buy Cokes brand only. By doing so, the company forces out other competition. When you go to a restaurant and order a Pepsi, sometimes you hear, “is coke ok?”, at that point almost majority of the consumers will say yes. Lastly, the company sponsors various sporting events around the world.
Internet Marketing
The internet is quite possibly the most important way to promote products and services these days. The Coca-Cola company has its own website, which is user-friendly, this is extremely important. The website encourages customer interaction by various features that allow customers to become interactive through various games, contests, shopping, and through a special section of the website that enables consumers to find out how they can help their community. The website even allows consumers to give their feedback on the brand and allows them to even leave suggestions.
Along with individual company websites, social media is the main communication of the modern era. Thanks to the usage of Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, and Instagram, Coke is able to capture the attention of the young audience through this internet advertising.
Personal Selling
Since Coca-Cola is a world wide company, they have representatives around the world. These representatives reach the customers and create awareness among them about a new product or service and sell the products to the customers. These representatives build relationships with the customer, and promote the product to different customers within the regions they work.
There are more marketing communication strategies that the company uses. It is important that a company has a few of them up their sleeve. Coca-Cola is a good example of a company who chooses the proper marketing communications. The company has successfully implemented all its communication strategies. This has actually helped the company in gaining customers and also maintaining a good rapport with the potential customers.
