PepsiCo Inc Marketing Concepts and Strategy - Essay Example

PepsiCo Inc Marketing Concepts and Strategy Marketing is a crucial aspect of every company’s business strategies, and every marketer strives to reach out to customers in product markets by creating customer value and strong customer relationships (Kotler and Armstrong 36). Businesses today are highly preoccupied with the goal of being the most customer-centric companies through marketing techniques; effective marketing entails understanding and capturing consumer needs and wants, ensuring customers have a constant supply of their favorite products and services and developing high quality products that appeal to the customers. All these activities, from a marketing perspective, enable businesses to attract a market share, run profitably and sustainably. This paper examines the marketing concepts and subjects of marketing strategy that are presented and explained in a documentary program, CNBC special research/analysis on the company PepsiCo, which is headquartered in Purchase, New York, PepsiCo Inc is an American multinational company that produces markets and distributes grain-based snack foods and beverages. Like all businesses, PepsiCo has to gain a share of the highly competitive market, make profits, and create consumer value; however, this is not an easy feat to achieve without strategic marketing concepts and marketing strategies. The first marketing concept inherent in PepsiCo’s marketing strategy is the creation of healthy foods and drinks in response to the rise in global health issues, such as obesity (“Pepsi Documentary Part 1”). PepsiCo aims to produce snacks and beverages with low calorie, sugar, and salt, a challenging marketing strategy that is slowly transforming the scarcely known nondescript company into a leading global beverage and snacks company. Besides that, PepsiCo has an ever-increasing global presence, supplying a wide range of beverages and snacks all over the world; the company aims to satisfy customers through a regular supply of their products. The company fulfills all their customers’ needs by ensuring that there are no shortages of consumer products in the market, ranging from beverages up to snacks. Supplying customers with all their needs is an effective customer-centric strategy that enables PepsiCo to build strong customer relations while making profits. Research and innovation is at the center of PepsiCo’s marketing strategy; the company actively conducts research to discover new ingredients and flavors that can be used in its products (“Pepsi Documentary Part 1”). This research is very essential in the creation of new breakthroughs for the company; for instance, in its quest to establish healthier products, the company seeks to discover alternative sweeteners through the research. Research is an effective way of building customer value because the basis for the establishment of outstanding products caters for consumer needs. PepsiCo continuously seeks to create superior brands that are appealing to the customers, so that it can attract its share of the product market. Given the changing global attitudes towards lifestyles in particular, PepsiCo has an obligation to meet the new market needs by ensuring its products are in tandem with the emerging changes. PepsiCo’s research and product development center works tirelessly and relentlessly to establish new ideas the company can implement that, in order to create sustainable customer value and loyalty. For instance, PepsiCo’s product research and development center has been tasked to find ways of reducing the levels of sugar, calories, and salts in the company’s products as a strategic direction for the future (“Pepsi Documentary Part 2”). Ethics and cultural considerations are also part of PepsiCo’s marketing strategies; the company is firmly committed to societal values and cultural aspects that characterize its potential target markets. For instance, the company is strongly committed to reducing the levels of calories, sugar and salt in their existing products while creating new ones at the same time (“Pepsi Documentary Part 2”); this is in line with its Corporate Social Responsibility to boosting global nutritional levels and reducing the rise of health issues such as obesity. Given the high global attention to matters regarding ethics and ethical standards, PepsiCo can only ignore health and nutritional considerations at its own peril; the company desires to achieve its goals through honest means by doing the right things in the right ways. This is not an easy option for the company especially given that profit motivations can sometimes drive companies into acting unethically, by doing undercut deals and businesses. Besides that, the company tries to customize its products to specific cultural tastes and preferences of its customers; this ensures the customers are satisfied with PepsiCo’s products. Every target market has a set of cultural values and norms, which are deeply held by people, and expressed in terms of their tastes and preferences. PepsiCo has been keen to study the emerging markets needs through needs assessment programs that are aimed at generating feedback on its products. This feedback has been very significant in the creation of products that meet the standards of tastes and preferences that are specific to certain cultures and groups of people (“Pepsi Documentary Part 1”). In this respect, consciousness of cultural considerations, tastes and preferences of specific groups of people is also an effective way of creating strong customer relationships, customer value and loyalty. PepsiCo’s employee motivation and appraisal programs go a long way in influencing the company’s strategic position in the highly competitive global product markets. For instance, PepsiCo’s salespersons relentlessly strive to market the company’s products against a backdrop of numerous market odds such as skepticism, negative attitudes, and high competition from rival products (“Pepsi Documentary Part 1”). However, the salespersons are continuously motivated to work extra harder through appraisal programs that recognize and honor hard working employees in the company. Human resource management is a very essential aspect of every business marketing strategy; if employees are disgruntled and dissatisfied it is more likely that their levels of motivation to work will be very low. PepsiCo’s human resource propagates the company to incredible heights of success because they work tirelessly and relentlessly to achieve the company’s goals, make profits and satisfy the customers. PepsiCo has been keen to capitalize on new emerging markets in places like India and China with an aim of expanding the company’s global base (“Pepsi Documentary Part 3”). Alongside PepsiCo’s expansion strategies so as to serve expansive global markets is the company’s strategic plans for the future direction; PepsiCo’s marketing strategy does not merely focus on the present but also on the future (“Pepsi Documentary Part 3”). The company has diversified its range of products in order to increase its global presence in consumer product markets around the world. This is also aimed at creating a strong and sustainable customer relations, customer value and customer loyalty; the more PepsiCo’s products there is in the market, the more famous the brand becomes and this is a brilliant strategy to attract market shares. Ultimately, PepsiCo’s marketing strategies encompass product research and development, commitment to customer satisfaction through adequate and healthier products, corporate social responsiveness, and commitment to ethical and cultural considerations; the company also remains committed to staff motivation and emerging markets such as China and India. Generally, PepsiCo’s marketing strategies are driven towards creating strong customer value and customer relations; this begins by understanding market needs and wants and production of superior products that satisfy the customers demand. PepsiCo’s marketing strategies have enabled PepsiCo to grab its share of the market, make profits and achieve customer value in the highly competitive global product markets. However, despite its successes, PepsiCo is still faced with a host of challenges such as the corporate social responsibility dilemma; the company still produces and sales a host of products that have high calories, sugar and salt despite its desire to move towards healthier products (“Pepsi Documentary Part 3”). Works Cited Kotler, Philip, and Armstrong Gary. Principles of Marketing. 14th ed. New Jersey, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2011. Print. “Pepsi Documentary Part 1”: Annie Hall. Dir. Woody Allen. 1977. Videocassette. MGM/UA Home Video, 1991. “Pepsi Documentary Part 2”: Annie Hall. Dir. Woody Allen. 1977. Videocassette. MGM/UA Home Video, 1991. < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQZr_BH1TjE> “Pepsi Documentary Part 3”: Annie Hall. Dir. Woody Allen. 1977. Videocassette. MGM/UA Home Video, 1991. Read More