The Integrated Marketing Strategy Developed for Coca Cola Company - Term Paper Example

Final Paper Executive Summary The integrated marketing strategy is a comprehensive plan developed for Coca Cola Company to boost revenue and enhance brand awareness. The Coca Cola Company is regarded as one of the leading marketers, manufacturers and distributors of beverages. This American multinational soft drink company has come under scrutiny due to its inability of execution of effective marketing plan. The prime purpose of the report is to create an integrated marketing strategy that can benefit Coca Cola Company to regain its iron fist reign on the global soft drink business. Every aspects of marketing plan is thoroughly researched and clearly examined to develop an efficient and effective strategy. The implementation of effective positional and marketing strategy can benefit to gain competitive lead over other rivals. The introduction of Minute maid, as a new high quality juice, requires most suitable marketing strategies to monitor the external opportunities and threats. One of the greatest strength of the Coca Cola Company is to market any new product or conduct business on a worldwide scale. The execution of Customer Relationship Management, direct marketing and internet marketing campaign can benefit Coca Cola Company for maintaining long-term sustainable growth. Introduction Global business environment is becoming highly competitive as several leading organizations around the globe are trying to capitalize on the potential opportunities that are developed due to globalization and technological advancement. Each and every organization is trying to develop and implement unique strategies in business operation process in order to gain potential competitive advantages over their competitors. Marketing strategy can be considered as important business operation strategy that helps organizations to market their products successfully to the target customers. This report will integrate relevant marketing theories and concepts to develop specific marketing ideas to promote a leading brand named Coca Cola. The Coca Cola Company can be considered as one of the leading soft drink multinational brands headquartered in the United States of America. Now-a-days, the global soft drink industry has become highly saturated due to the presence of several potential competitors. Therefore, it is highly important for the organizations to develop new competitive products and promote effectively to the target audiences in order to mitigate the risk of intense market competition. Introduction of high quality fruit juice in the market place and development of effective integrated marketing ideas will help the organization to gain success in global market place. Thesis Statement “Effective contemporary public relation, advertising and direct market campaign for newly developed health drink products will help The Coca Cola Company to remain its competitive edge in global market place”. Product and Brand Image It is clear from above introductory paragraph that global soft drink industry is highly competitive as well as saturated. It is true that several soft drink manufacturing organizations faced several health related issues due to the presence of carbonates and pesticides in the soft drinks. Looking into this issue, several the trend of consumption of carbonated soft drinks has change to consumption of high quality fruit juices and soft drinks. Looking into this, global trend, several organizations tried to introduce high quality soft drinks in order to maintain their high brand image in global market place. However, the management of the Coca Cola Company has introduced Minute Maid as a high quality fruit juice in order to offer products according to the current market trend. It is true that the brand was introduced in 1940s. But, recent health related issues and current market trend forced the organization to market it aggressively (Harris & Dennis, 2007). This report will offer some marketing ideas to the management of the Coca Cola Company in order to promote it more significantly to the target audiences. This specific product development process and marketing strategy will help the organization to maintain its high brand image in global market place. Some pesticide and carbonate issues affected the brand image of the organizations. These newly developed marketing ideas for minute maid will help the Coca Cola Company to regain and maintain its brand image. Target Market It is highly important for the organization to develop a target market analysis for the intended product based on the product characteristics in order to gain success in global market place. It is clear from above discussion that the global market trend is changing from high carbonated and pesticide soft drinks to high quality fruit juices. People of different ages and demographic backgrounds are preferring these fruit juices in order to avoid health related issues occurred from high carbonated soft drinks. People of middle class and higher middle class income group are the major target customers of this Minute Maid. People aged between 12 and 55 are the main target customers. School students, college students, office goers, young adults and households are the target customers. Especially, the health conscious customers, who love soft drinks, are the only target customers of this Minute Maid (Blakeman, 2014). Buyer’s Motivation Buying motivation of the customers can be considered as an important parameter for the organization before developing any kind of marketing idea or marketing strategy. It is true that, according to recent market trend, soft drink lovers are trying to consume high quality fruit juices in order to keep their body fit and healthy. Buying motivation generally depends upon several parameters, such as product quality, economic condition and current market trend. The management of Coca Cola Company has implemented economic pricing strategy for Minute maid in order to back the purchasing power of the people lower-middle class, middle class and higher-middle class income group. It is true that recent financial crisis and economic recession have affected the purchasing power of common people. This economic pricing strategy helped the people to buy products at economic price (Yeshin, 2008). Moreover, high quality fruit ingredients justify the freshness and high quality of the products. This high quality control aspect has helped the organization to motivate the consumers to buy Minute maid according to current global market trend. Demographic and Psychographic Segmentation Demographic segmentation includes age and income background of people. It is clear from the above discussion that people aged between 12 and 55 are the major target customers. Therefore, the organization should try to segment it in such a way so that the people get motivated to consume it. In addition to this, people of middle class and high middle class income group are the potential customers for this. Health conscious customers are the major target customers for this product. Therefore, according to demographic segmentation, it is highly important for the organization to segment Minute Maid as a high quality, economic priced soft drink that can be consumed by the people of all ages (Pride & Ferrell, 2008). According to psychographic segmentation, it is highly important for the organization to segment Minute Maid in such as way so that the consumers perceive minute maid as a high quality fruit juice. In addition to this, the management of the organization should also ensure the high brand image of Coca Cola in case of the promotion and marketing of minute maid. Overall Marketing Strategy It is true that effective marketing strategy is highly important for a product to get success initially. Effective marketing strategy includes significant marketing mix and positioning strategy that are discussed below. 4Ps of Marketing Mix Marketing mix can be considered as an important strategic marketing tool that can help an organization to ensure effective product, pricing, distributional and promotional strategy. These are discussed below with respect to Minute Maid. Product It is true that the management of the Coca Cola Company has taken a serious initiative to promote and market Minute Maid according to the current market trend. But, it is highly important for the organization to improve the quality of product as much as they can as it will help them to gain more competitive advantages. The management of the organization should try to develop more advanced, efficient and high quality research and development team in order to improve the quality of the fruit drinks. Price It is true that the organization has implemented economic pricing strategy for the products. But, it is the responsibility of the marketing department of the organization to implement aggressive competitive pricing strategy to attract people to consume it. Adoption of cost leadership business level strategy will help the organization to reduce its overall business operation cost. As a result, the organization can implement competitive pricing strategy that cannot the profit generation of the organization. Place (Distribution) Distribution can be considered as one of the most important business operation strategies for an organization. First of all, the management of the organization should try to continue with own distribution channel to supply the products. Secondly, the organization should try to reduce the supply chain lead time in distribution process by installing advanced technological application in it. It will help the organization to increase the efficiency of overall supply chain and distribution process. Promotion Promotion can be considered as one of the important marketing activities for any organization. Effective advertising and promotion can enhance effective brand awareness of a particular product and service. Effective online social media promotional and advertising strategy can help Minute Maid to create significant brand awareness among the target customers. It is true that, majority of the people are connected with each other through the help of several social media platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter. These social media platforms can be used by the management of the organization in order to promote the product. In addition, real time public relation campaign can help the organization to create significant brand awareness among students and young office executives. Last but not the least; the management of the organization can use direct marketing strategy by using advanced CRM software in order to create brand awareness aggressively (Lamb, 2011). These suggested strategies will help the organization to promote the product efficiently. Positioning Strategy vs. Competitors Positioning strategy can be considered as an important integral part of the marketing strategy. It is highly important for the management of the Coca Cola Company to position Minute Maid based on the characteristics of product and nature of target market. Following perceptual mind map will help to determine the market positioning of Minute Maid. It is clear from the above positioning perceptual mind map that implementation of economic pricing strategy and high quality control of the products will help Minute Maid to position in the high quality-low price quadrant that can help to meet the current market trend. Most importantly, it is highly important for the organization to create a significant brand image of Minute Maid in the minds of target customers. In terms of competitors, it is true that global soft drink and fruit juice industry is highly competitive due to presence of several leading brands, such as Tropicana. The recommended positioning strategy will help the organization to gain potential competitive advantages over its competitors as it is true that several popular fruit juices are quite expensive comparing to the minute maid. It is the responsibility of the marketing department of the Coca Cola Company to develop the promotional campaigning such a way, so that the intended market position of product can be justified. These strategies will help the organization to mitigate the threat of intense market competition around the globe (Wong, 2010). Promotions and Advertisement The application of promotional campaign can be mentioned as a succession of advertisements with the help of several marketing tools that share identical awareness and message to target consumers and endorse a business. Advertising campaign can enable a business to different media outlet as quickly as possible. The proactive approach of advertising approach can be adopted by Coca-Cola Company to create product recognition, build name and trust for Minute Maid. Advertisement and promotional campaign are both different types of marketing methods that can be implemented by Coca-Cola Company to enhance awareness and boost sales of Minute Maid (Pride, 2013). Advertising and promotional campaign can be of several types, such as radio commercial, mobile campaign, AR advertising, television commercial, print and newspapers advertising. Radio and television advertisement can used to promote Minute Maid. The television advertisement provides an opportunity for Coca-Cola Company to communicate with international, local and national audiences in short amount of time. It is regarded as most powerful for of advertisement that can grab the attention of customers to buy new products. The upgraded launch of Minute maid requires the application of effective promotional and advertising campaign. Advertising on television establish a direct to communicate with target customers and reach global audiences (Kitchen, 2004). The promotions of Minute maid on television can influence and persuade customers to buy the product. When customer sees any add more than couple of times, then automatically the advertising power of television can attract the attention of customers. Radio advertising camping is another medium to reach a national or international audience. The execution of a radio campaign is time efficient and creates a quick time frame for launch of new products. Radio promotion is much faster and requires extreme short lead time. Moreover, these strategies can help to create awareness of Minute maid. Recommendation for a Public Relation Campaign The public relation campaign can be characterized as the application of media, techniques and values of public relations to achieve specific goals of a business which are applied in a campaign strategy approach. The development of smart public relation campaign can enable organization to get clear profile of the target audience and rise effectiveness and efficiency of an organization (Kenneth, 2007). The three characteristics for a series of activities on a public relations campaign are finding the message to achieve objective, identifying an objective and eventually communicating the planned message to the target audience. Public print campaign is one of the effective strategies that can be implemented by Coca-Cola Company to promote Minute maid. It is vital for an organization to present any public relations campaign that can help to promote understanding, confirm a perception, develop knowledge, create awareness, overcome misunderstanding and encourage belief about launch of any new product (Ogden & Ogden, 2014). Coca-Cola Company has to create effective plan that can help to increase opportunity for achieving the objectives and improve perception about a product. The effective public relation campaign of Minute maid can benefit Coca-Cola Company to enhance their brand image and increase sales. Print campaigns is a process in which representative of public relations sends out press publications to various types of media outlets to attract target audiences. These press releases can help to promote Minute maid. These releases can also be used by members of the media to write a story or else can be used to contact with Coca-Cola Company to get detailed information about launch of new products and its unique selling proposition. A story can published regarding the launch of Minute made by having list of media contacts from high quality PR agents. Internet Marketing Campaign The launch of internet marketing campaign is regarded as one of the significant parts of overall marketing strategy of a company. The prime goal of the campaign is to maintain existing client base and reach potential customers as quickly as possible. This resembles the fact that the application of internet marketing campaign can benefit Coca-Cola Company to remain within the advertising budget and grow customer base for launching Minute maid. The introduction of high quality drinks requires a full marketing campaign as it can help to target customer more efficiently, the results are measurable, reach wider international audience, can be personalized and build relationships. According to HubSpot, 27% of the digital marketers stated that the application of email and social media marketing can benefit organization by reducing the total average lead costs (Shimp & Andrews, 2013). The launch of Minute maid requires effective marketing campaign to gain the attention of the audiences and attract specific customers according to their needs. The process of internet marketing is regarding as inbound marketing to target customer more effectively. Planning, on-site marketing and off-site marketing efforts are certain steps of internet marketing campaign. Websites and social media marketing is one of those efforts that can help Coca-Cola Company to successfully launch Minute maid. Website can be used as a marketing and communication tool. Website marketing can enhance the image of a company and educate customer about the business or launch of new products. This step can be implemented by Coca-Cola Company to sell Minute maid and also communicate with audiences to provide constant update. E-mail marketing campaign can be launched by Coca-Cola Company to directly communicate with clients. This type of marketing campaign has a wide reach and allows recipient to receive immediate message over a short period of time. This step can excel in Return-on-investment. Email marketing can also be highly customized and customer relations and awareness on Minute maid. Direct Marketing Campaign and CRM Direct marketing campaign is defined as an operation that seeks to provoke an action from consumers in reply to marketer communication. The communication from the marketer can be of various forms such as telemarketing, postal mail, point-of-sale interactions and direct e-mail marketing. The response of the customer should be assessable. This process of campaign can benefit Coca-Cola Company target a segment with an application of impactful advertising messages to customers. The application of direct marketing campaign helps to eliminate wholesalers, middleman and retailers. Infomercial is one of the viable options that can be implemented by Coca-Cola Company to target specific segment for launch of Minute maid. This step is used by company to sell products by television commercials (Mullin, 2010). This can be run locally or nationally to test launch of new product. Customer Relationship Management involves all characteristics of interaction that specific organization has with customers in case of sales or service associated process. The application of CRM systems helps organization to manage sales leads, clients and business contacts. Customer relationship management enables organization to receive customer business data that can to provide products or services required by customers. The implementation of CRM can benefit organization to increase profitability, understand the customer, decrease cost of customer management, retain customer, win new contracts and attract new customers. The benefits of moving Coca-Cola Company in to CRM system can benefit to improve business process and develop efficient automatic process for the launch of Minute maid. The information that is stored in CRM software can help Coca-Cola Company to manage relationships with their customers. This process can determine the necessary steps required for the launch of high quality fruit juice. Conclusion This can be concluded from integrated marketing strategy that it is vital for every organization to use every component of the promotional mix and implement effective public relation and advertising campaign. The Coca Cola Company has its market presence in several developed as well as emerging global markets. Therefore, it is the responsibility of the management of the organization to develop high quality products for consumers according to the current global market trend. The application of sales promotion can benefit Coca Cola Company to boost the sales of Minute maid. The launch of high quality fruit drinks, Minute maid requires effective internet marketing campaign to reach wider audience and personalize in accordance to the customer requirement. The application of advertising and promotional campaign can help to increase awareness about launch of new product and grab the attention of audience. A multi-faceted strategy for internet marketing campaign can increase brand recognition and substantially increase sales. The introduction of several concepts and themes about Minute maid can create awareness. The implementation of direct marketing campaign provides opportunity for Coca Cola Company to promote Minute maid. This step is cost-effective and helps to build personal connection with customer to increase sales. Customer Relationship Management can enable Coca Cola Company to keep in contact with the customers and allows identifying the needs and requirements of customer. Moreover, it can be concluded that the introduction of Minute maid can be successful by the implementation of effective marketing strategy. References Blakeman, R. (2014). Integrated Marketing Communication. London: Routledge. Harris, L., & Dennis, C. (2007). Marketing the e-business. New Jersey: Pearson. Kenneth, C. (2007). Integrated Advertising, Promotion and Marketing Communication. New Jersey: Pearson. Kitchen, P. (2004). Integrated Marketing Communications. London: Sage. Lamb, C. (2011). Essentials of Marketing. New York: Springer. Mullin, R. (2010). Sales Promotion. New York: Springer. Ogden, J. R., & Ogden, D. T. (2014). Integrated marketing communications: Advertising, public relations, and more. San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education, Inc.
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