Download Marketing Communication Mix Table of Contents

Marketing Communication Mix
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Table of Contents
Introduction ................................................................................................................................................... 3
The Organisation........................................................................................................................................... 3
Opportunities identification and Analysis..................................................................................................... 3
Marketing Communication of Coca-Cola ..................................................................................................... 4
Objectives ..................................................................................................................................................... 6
Summary: The Communication Strategy ...................................................................................................... 6
Marketing Communication Mix.................................................................................................................... 8
Media Issues and Budget ............................................................................................................................ 10
Agency Remuneration ................................................................................................................................ 13
Evaluation ................................................................................................................................................... 13
Conclusion .................................................................................................................................................. 14
References ................................................................................................................................................... 15
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Introduction
The soft drink industry has emerged as leading beverage industry. In 2009-2011, major companies
experienced sales rebound in the midst of economic recovery in the Western developed markets. Whilst
the players are busy shaping up their infrastructure in the major emerging markets, they are also exploring
opportunities to enhance scales of operation and enter and expand into niche class in order to attain
profitable growth.
The Organisation
Coca-Cola, with more than 3500 products, is a leading company in the beverage industry. The inception
of the company can be traced back 125 years ago. As of now, the company has business in more than 200
countries with around 139,600 employees.
Opportunities identification and Analysis
SWOT Analysis can reveal a good amount of information about the company, its strengths, weaknesses,
opportunities and threats.
Strengths:

Coca-Cola is a well known brand across the globe.

The company is blesses with talented human resource.

It has a good relationship with its partners. For an instance, in Europe, it has strong relationship
with Coca-Cola Enterprises Inc.
Weaknesses

The company has shown sluggish performance in North America.

The brand is somewhat affected by negative publicity about soft drink products.
Opportunities

Coca-Cola has been the partner in many sport events.

As a global leading brand it also has opportunities to move into partnership with production
houses and other events.

The company has got opportunity to avoid intense competition through acquiring other players
operating in this industry.

The company can explore growing bottled water market.
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Threats

Intense Competition in the industry.

The company has dependence on the bottling partners.

Sluggish growth of carbonated beverages.
Marketing Communication of Coca-Cola
According to Gary Armstrong and Philip Kotler, the marketing mix of an organisation consists of
particular blend of advertising, personal selling, direct marketing, sales promotions and public relations.
A company can take tactical measures to communicate customer values and develop customer
relationships. The same is pretty much applicable for Coca-Cola. Its marketing communication is a blend
of various advertising and sales channels.
Advertising: This is one of significant element of marketing communication mix. Coca-Cola has always
used this channel to promote ideas and its product range.
Coke Zero has come up with its latest TV ad “taste the possibilities”. The ad activity runs across the TV,
video on demand channels and even on the Coke zone website. This was targeted to the core audience, the
youngsters. According to Coke zero, the ad is to position the band as “beacon of possibilities” (Bearne,
2012).
Diet Coke has also come up with its new phase of fashion focussed TV campaigning “Love it Light”. The
TV campaign displays that the brand’s “fashionista” puppet ambassadors arguing over who among them
deserves the last can of Coke left in the fridge. Diet Coke is also offering support to this year’s activity
with three brand new pack designs, promoting the brand’s partnership with Benefit. The activity was also
supported with a dedicated Facebook page which encourages the consumers to ‘Get Glam’ with Benefit
make-up.
Diet Coke has carried out strategies for the tenure of three years which also included the brand linked to
fashion. So far, the activities included partnerships with London Fashion Week, Asos and Week and Nails
Inc (O’Reilly, 2012).
In last Christmas, Coca-Cola came up with ‘holidays are coming’, featuring Santa Claus, followed by an
ad dubbed “snow globe” which shows the role of Coke in festive family occasions.
Outdoor Activities: Furthermore, Coca-Cola put effort to enhance the essence further by outdoor activities
featuring Santa and Coca-Cola truck. At West End of London, Coca-Cola Piccadilly sign featured
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goodwill messages which have been tweeted by the consumers. The truck tour of Santa stopped at some
100 towns of UK to surprise millions of people in the festive season (Fernandez, 2010).
Press: Since long, the company has been using magazines as a form of advertisements. In 1931, the CocaCola Santa made its debut on the pages of The Saturday Evening Post. Along with this, the advertisement
used to also come on the pages of Ladies Home Journal, National Geographic, The New Yorker and
others. One of such advertisement featured Santa even as a rocker (The Coca-Cola Company, 2012).
Internet and Social Media: Internet has been a significant way for Coca-Cola to promote its products. The
company has a well developed website, which is quite simple to navigate. The website also allows
contests, shopping through a special section of the website, enabling the consumers to find out the way to
help the community.
Now a days, social media has gained enough importance in the communication mix. Coca-Cola has also
given its effort to position itself in the online media world. The company has created a well developed
marketing strategy for facebook to reach a large amount of prospective audience.
Sponsorship: The company has moved into the sport sponsorship to encourage brand awareness. CocaCola will gauge its support to enhance the awareness among the young generation. As a longest serving
partner of the global Olympic movement, the company refurbishes its marketing approach for every
Olympiad. For London 2012, the company aims to assist the organising committee to inspire the
youngsters in a way which would leave a legacy after the Games. Coca-Cola is doing so by carrying out
its music oriented campaign ‘Move to the Beat’ (Barnett, 2012).
The company has lent its support to the charity initiatives which raises finance and awareness to help the
charity organisation eliminate HIV and AIDS.
Direct Marketing and Sales Promotion: The company practices direct marketing and sales promotion
activities. The company offers its products to retailers at low prices and as a result, the retailer can sell off
the products on sale.
The company uses direct marketing in several ways. The company partners with various movie theatres
and restaurants to advertise and sell its products. Coca-Cola has also started mobile advertising. It uses
mobile graphics and texts to appeal the market.
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Objectives
Corporate Objectives
The company has several objectives to be mentioned. Coca-Cola wants to accelerate the growth of
carbonated soft drink. To drive profitable growth, the company looks forward to broaden its family of
beverage brands. It wants to grow system profitability and capability together with its bottling partners.
The company would continue to invest into high potential areas across varied markets. Coca-Cola would
serve the customers efficiently and cost effectively to generate growth across the channels.
Marketing Objectives
Coca-Cola’s marketing objective is to high visibility of the brand. The company wants to be the favourite
brand among youth and in turn increase its sales.
Communication Objectives
The marketing communication objectives of Coca-Cola are to increase the awareness to the target
audiences, to put an emphasis on the differences of its product against those of its competitors and hence
it wants to create differentiation awareness among its consumers. Coca-Cola has a different taste
compared to those of its competitors. The company wants to enhance the brand value by repositioning the
brand as a substance of youth and fun. In all, the company wants to maintain preference of its brand
among its consumers.
Summary: The Communication Strategy
Target Audience
Research has shown that between the years 1995 and 2000, women used to be heavier users than men.
However, in 2002, statistics revealed that the tendency has been reversed. So, any can situation can
change anytime. The target market for Coca-Cola can range widely from 15 till 40 and even more than
that. The brand requires increasing its sales in the age group 15-24. Furthermore, the group 25-34, which
tends to buy by impulse should be targeted.
Targeting the Youths
To attract the younger group, a pull strategy would be required. The company can take help of art
sponsorship to enhance its corporate status and this is also expected to make the brand look younger.
Following this idea, the company can promote any young, pretty, upcoming singer who is starting to be
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recognised in show-biz world. While girls would like to identify themselves with her, boys would favour
her as she is pretty. Coca-Cola can sponsor rock, soft-rock concerts; Coca-Cola would be the only drink
available in the concert. Rock has been pretty fashionable among the youngsters. So, this promotion will
result in high visibility for the brand. Furthermore, the company can also arrange campaigns in the
colleges to increase its brand awareness among the youth.
Targeting the Males
Coca-Cola is being known for sponsoring sport events. The rationale behind choosing this kind of
promotional activities is to reach extremely large amount of audience. Sport events are followed by the
different teams, leagues and supporters. In United Kingdom, the favourite sports are football, rugby and
tennis. Coca-Cola can intensify its advertising campaign by placing banners inside and around the
stadium, where people get some time to look around. Adding to it, banners around the stadium can
increase ‘impulsive buying by attracting people waiting in queue to enter the stadium.
Targeting adults
Targeting adults of the age group 25-34 can be done using push strategy. The people of this age group
would prefer to go to pub or any club with friends and drink alcohol. Coca-Cola can move into
partnership with any well-known whisky brand such as J&B, Clan Campbell and develop promotional
activities with the association of the barmen, who are looked upon as references in case of drink. In big
cities, Coca-Cola can promote its whisky-coke as a fashionable drink while clubbing with friends.
Targeting mass audience: Advertising on TV and Movies
In today’s era, people are more attracted towards the advertisements in TV. There are few advantages of
this medium. Advertisement on TV can avoid the clutter, which can be seen in sport advertisements.
Furthermore, it is a cost effective channel giving opportunities to get connected with a large audience.
The company can also move into partnership with movies to advertise its products. The audience would
love to watch Peter Parker to have a sip of Coca-Cola. Large cinema complexes can be used to introduce
new campaigns.
Targeting elderly people
The company can target audiences by advertising on newspapers and magazines. Teenagers would love to
have a look at some fashion magazines like Hello!. This advertising channel will attract more female than
men as women read magazines more than men.
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Others
Adding to all other strategies, a profile strategy is of importance to develop impressive brand image and
corporate reputation. In the long run, Coca-Cola can use a drip marketing strategy to uphold awareness
among consumers. In drip marketing strategy, companies send automated series of marketing activities to
efficiently communicate with the current and prospective customers (Management CRM, 2009 ). The
company can adopt a burst strategy in summer as in summer people tend to buy impulsively.
Marketing Communication Mix
TV and Movie Campaigns
A TV campaign can be introduced as a base of drip strategy. A theme based on more fun is required to be
the base of campaigning to reposition the image of Coca-Cola. The symbol associated with Coca Cola is
Polar Bear. So this white bear can be used as the prominent character in the campaign. One of the
significant objectives is to encourage impulsive buy. This kind of promotional activity can take place in
the beaches. On the beach, to remind people of Coca-Cola this kind of advertisement can be used with
some Hawaii or rock music.
The objective of this advertisement is based on few objectives. Some of them are to reinforce the idea that
Coca-Cola is a refresher drink, to develop the idea that Coca-Cola takes you to somewhere else and
finally this reinforces the idea of fun and youth. Other advertisements can also be carried out in sync such
as the bear clubbing with its friends in pubs or clubs can be a good idea. The campaign is required to be
changed in the Christmas time with its usual Santa ads. The aim is to reach a large targeted audience.
Press
Press advertising can be a burst campaign, used mostly in the end of Spring and Summer. In this time,
Coca-Cola can come up with advertisements on the pages of magazines as in the holiday time people
would have more time to read the magazines. In this way, the company will target two different
audiences: young and old. From the creative point of view, the advertisement is required to be full with
plenty of colours, with more of visual effect to reflect more youth and fun.
To attract the old people, the advertising is required to be full of facts. In this case, the advertisement must
reveal the advantages of this drink against other drinks. This advertisement can display a strong
relationship of grand children with their grandparents. In this way, Coca-Cola can help the elderly people
feel strong bond with the young people by sharing values.
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In the young magazines, the advertisement can be placed on the last cover page as the advertisement
would be visually prominent. For elder people, the advertisements can be placed on the right page and at
the beginning of the journal. People tend to read an advertisement at the beginning of the magazine.
Other communication mix recommendations
Banners
During the summer, Coca-Cola can make intensive use of banners. As mentioned earlier, the company
can sponsor the show events of any young singer. To reinforce the same, the company can use the banners
showing the singer wearing sunglasses and bottle of Coke. The same can be done with the bear. A cute
bear wearing sunglass and Coke would appeal prospective customers on the beach.
Banners can be used to display in the buses where it can appeal a huge number of people. In bigger cities,
general banners can be displayed to attract prospective consumers.
Sports
Coca-Cola is already known for their sport sponsorship. During the entire year, the company can put
banner in the stadium during large sport events. National Rugby team and Football teams can be
sponsored during the year.
Cause Related Marketing
Cause related marketing has a significant importance in developing public relations. The company extend
its support to specific associations in order to enhance the awareness of the company. Through these
means, the company can place itself as more credible, ethical and responsible. This differentiation is
required to attract consumers’ attention in this competitive world. The company can take part in the
events related to health or environment or may be both. The company can also invest in addressing health
problems of young people, trying to establish a new model of an ideal body.
Coca-Cola can also continue to sponsor youth development programs, which can contain some training
programs. In this way, the company can create a more clear and ethical image to the population.
Sales Promotions
In case of sales promotions, two channels can be used by the organisation: manufacturer to the resellers
and manufacturers to the consumers. The objective of the first type of sales promotion is to make them
buy and display more of its products. To establish a brand loyalty, the company can offer buying
allowance and discounts to increase the average order size.
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The company can offer special offers, coupons to increase immediate short term sales to the consumers. It
can also organise a trip to some place for the winner. Along with that, they can have other prizes such as
T-shirts, Caps and CDs. To promote this, the bottles can be designed with a shiny picture of the specific
tourist place.
Online promotion
In today’s era of internet, the companies are fighting to get attention in the cyber space. The above
competition can be also made available online. In order to reinforce brand awareness, games, screensavers, eBooks and interesting downloads can be made available on the site. This promotion is not
directly related to the product; however, this is expected to increase web traffic on its site and hence
would create awareness among the young people.
Social Media has gained its importance with increasing traffic on the social networking sites. The
company must use most of the social media and sites like facebook, twitter and other sites. The company
can launch new campaigns, ads to attract the people on these networks and can seek feedbacks on the
same. This would raise more awareness among the people.
Joint Ventures
Joint venture is another significant promotional activity which is pretty important in today’s competitive
scenario. As mentioned earlier, the company can move into venture with whisky brand and display joint
promotional activities in pubs and clubs. Coca-Cola can also develop special relationship with specific
clubs and pubs. The company can bring in new fashion about whisky-Coke.
To attract the young adults, the company can distribute T-shirts and caps in the clubs and pubs. Another
significant thing is to use some differently designed glasses in the pubs and clubs to serve whisky-coke.
Media Issues and Budget
Press
In order to reach a wide range of target audiences, the company must include several magazines to be part
of the press campaign. The campaign can be for 3 months in the summer. Coca-Cola must target the
young audience via both Hello! and OK magazines. These are mostly for the young girls. Elderly people
can be targeted via magazines like Top santé and Readers’ Digest. Magazines like Sunday can also be
used to attract prospective consumers. Sainbury’s magazines can be used to target specific retailers. The
total estimated budget would be as follows.
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Name of Magazines
Hello!
OK!
Reader's Digest
Sunday
Sainsbury's
Magazine
Total
No of
Advertisements
12
12
3
12
Price/ unit
Total price
(£)
(£)
11000
132000
11000
132000
5000
15000
17000
204000
3
42
9000
53000
27000
510000
TV Budget
TV is a significant media to attract large number of people. There are different channels for varied young
groups. In the time of summer new TV ads would be created to increase impulsive buying. Furthermore,
in the Christmas time, news ads are required to bring in more fun. The TV budget is as follows.
Name of TV
Channels
BBC1
Channel 4
Five
Total
Total price
No of Advertisements/day Average Price/ unit (£) (£)
3
8000
8640000
3
9000
9720000
3
7000
7560000
9
24000
77760000
The table above has taken average pricing and average no. of advertisements/day to calculate the budget.
It should be noted that in case of summers and Christmas days, the no of advertisements may increase.
Cinema Budget
The company can partner with any movie, may be superhero series like Spiderman. The advertisements
can also be shown on the large screens of big cinema complexes.
The budget for this would be: Once in three days in 6 cities * 4 weeks * £40,000 = £ 3,20,000.
Budget for Banners
Posters can be posted both at roadsides and on the buses. This may be carried out for 12 weeks.
The budget for this would be as follow.
No of Banners
Roadside
Buses
Total
20
10
30
Average Price/ unit (£) Total price (£)
300000
6000000
100000
1000000
400000
7000000
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Sponsorship Budget
To sponsor a singer the company would be required to pay around £2000000 to promote her shows and
concerts. On the other hand, sponsoring rugby and football would cost around £3000000.
Cause Related Marketing Budget
In this case, the company would support three types of associations: environmental, youth health and
other youth programs. Each of them would have a budget of £350000 totaling around £1050000.
Internet Budget
The development of games, wallpapers and screen savers would require recruiting specific talents. So this
would cost around £1050000. This would also include changing the website with colors, fun and to make
it more visually attractive.
Furthermore, the company would also be required to invest into the advertisements and sharing pictures
and other stuffs on social media networking sites. This would cost around £50000.
Sales Promotion and Joint Venture Budgets
To offer discounts and coupons a budget of £400000 would be required. Along with this, to go with
competition, the company would require another £300000.
Joint venture with clubs and other institutions would require £500000 totaling around 1200000.
Total Budget
The company, in total, would require £93940000.
Press
TV Budget
Cinema Budget
Banners
Sponsorship Budget
Cause Related marketing Budget
Internet Budget
Sales Promotion and Joint Ventures
Total
Total Cost (£)
510000
77760000
320000
7000000
5000000
1050000
1100000
1200000
93940000
The total budget is just estimation and can be changed according to the date and demand.
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Agency Remuneration
The agency responsible to carry out the campaigns would be getting a fixed percentage of the
communication budget. Furthermore, they can also ask for a percentage made on the annual sales amount.
In this the fixed percentage has been assumed to be 8% of the entire communication budget. So the
agency fee comes around £4697000. For the agency, the percentage of sales would be much more
lucrative as everybody knows that Coca-Cola‘s sales would be huge.
Evaluation
There are many methods to evaluate the achievement of the company’s objectives. If one objective is not
achieved in the stipulated time period, one must develop and implement new plans. . For long term
implementation process, a pre evaluation can take place quarterly or semi annually. This would help the
company to amend the plan prior to obtaining complete non-success.
Advertising
To evaluate the effectiveness of advertisement, a work-in-progress advertisement can be shown to a
specific group of people and get their feedback. The company can also make use of focus group to collect
feedback from the group. This would help them to understand the effectiveness of the advertisements and
would help them to refine the commercial to enhance the effectiveness.
Furthermore, tracking procedure can be taken to get informed about the awareness level of a commercial.
Interviewing people on regular basis can help the company to collect data regarding the buyers’
perception about their advertisements. For established products, a periodic tracking will be helpful.
Test of likeability is another predictor to evaluate the effectiveness of an ad. However, there can be
misleading information as people may like the ad but may not relate the same with the brand. So, a
careful prediction is necessary for the company (Neuez, 2003).
Sales Promotion
To evaluate the reseller sales promotion, a manufacturer can carry out pre and post analysis of both
allocated shelf space as well as products taken into the reseller’s portfolio. The marketing objectives can
be checked in terms of increase in sales amount.
Sponsorship
It is difficult to evaluate sponsorship. It can be done essentially for the sport sponsors by consumer
surveys i.e. personal interview, postal surveys and telephone. Specifically, recall tests can be used to
evaluate the impact on the memory of the target audience.
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Public Relations
Evaluation of a corporate image should be a regular exercise, supported by the company management.
Key stakeholders and consumers can be questioned about their perceptions of the significant attributes of
the company, they are related to. The company can carry out evaluation of it in each of the attributes and
evaluation of the performances in the attributes compared to those of the competitors.
Conclusion
Barbara Murray explained the soft drink industry by this statement: “For years the story in the
nonalcoholic sector centred on the power struggle between…Coke and Pepsi. But as the pop fight has
topped out, the industry's giants have begun relying on new product flavours…and looking to
noncarbonated beverages for growth.” It can be well understood that competition is pretty intensive in
this industry. So, Coca-Cola should make effective use of marketing communication mix to secure
sustainable growth in its business.
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References
Barnett, M. January, 2012. Sports sponsorship moves into the fast lane. Available at:
http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/sports-sponsorship-moves-into-the-fast-lane/3033351.article .
Bearne, S. February, 2012. Coke Zero introduces new strapline. Available at:
http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/sectors/food-and-drink/coke-zero-introduces-newstrapline/4000050.article .
Fernandez, J. October, 2010. Coca-Cola unveils Christmas ad campaigns. Available at:
http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/coca-cola-unveils-christmas-ad-campaigns/3019793.article .
Management CRM. 2009. Drip Marketing. Available at: http://managementcrm.com/drip_marketing.php.
Neuez, S. May, 2003. Communication Strategy. Available at:
http://sophie.neuez.free.fr/Rapports/Rapport_comm.pdf .
O’Reilly, L. January, 2011. Diet Coke launches new “Love It Light” activity. Available at:
http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/diet-coke-launches-new-love-it-light-activity/3033174.article .
The Coca-Cola Company. 2012. Coke Lore. Available at: http://www.thecocacolacompany.com/heritage/cokelore_santa.html .
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