Chapter 18- Sales promotion and personal selling

Coca cola spends a lot of money advertising and even though the brand name is very popular Coca cola still uses consumer sales promotion in order to attract new customers and also to provide their existing customers with an incentive to purchase more of their product. Coca cola sponsors many events and uses those stages to promote sales, when coca cola sponsors a sporting event for example, it usually raffles tickets in some of their bottles and cans, this is great promotion because it applies to many different social classes, from less fortunate people whom may not be able to afford tickets to events and buy coke in order to try and win, these raffles are fun and provide friendly competition amongst peers. I remember when I was younger, growing up in Israel, coke promoted itself by giving discount prices to a specific water park to whomever arrives with a certain amount of caps, and we would all buy coke instead of anything else available because we all wanted what the premium offered us. In the present coke provides a similar promotion to six flags amusement parks during the summer in the United States.

Chapter 17- Advertising and public relations

Coca cola use many methods of advertisement and the company spends a significant amount of money in order to be seen on billboards, magazines, television and  on the internet. Coca-cola sponsors many events around the world; events that are sponsored by coca-cola include many social and cultural backgrounds, through sponsoring large events coca-cola not only advertises its product but their name to, this is called institutional advertising.  Through their commercials on the television and other sources of media coca-cola focuses on product advertising, the company targets a wide range of market, coca-cola advertises all around the world, in different countries the advertisements will be in the languages spoken in those countries and that is one way of enhancing the targeted market.

Coca cola is known for their innovative and creative commercials, most events on prime time will have coca-cola commercials in the intermissions, the Super Bowl which is one of the events with the highest rating in the United States and has the highest cost for a commercial spot (ranging at around 3 million dollars for 30 seconds) often has coca-cola commercials, when people watching the super bowl see Coca-Cola's creative commercials they remember how appealing coca-colas products are.

Coca-Cola uses the mediums through which they advertise in a clever way because through their advertising they find a way to be appealing to a large range of generations, coca-cola has an image which it tries to highlight in most of their commercials, that image is the image of a close friend or relative who is there on the holidays, during the holiday season coca-cola always wishes holiday greetings on their commercials to everyone, images of Santa-Claus drinking coke are also an image booster for Coca-Cola, the brilliant advertising methods of coca-cola is a big part of the company’s global success, when a new coca-cola commercial is aired, rumors travel and soon enough they become a “must see”.

2011 Disaster in Japan

A great tragedy occurd in Japan last week. The world is praying for the Japanese people and wishing for their safety and a fast recovery.

Coca Cola has pledged 600m Yens in cash and product donations to the relief effort in Japan following the earthquake and tsunami.

Chapter 15- Retailing- A visit at the Apple store

Retailing is the final stop of a product before it reaches the consumer, retailing has a large influence of the economy in the U.S, to put it in proportion- when the latest economic crisis hit the country many of the top economists agreed that in order to revive the economy  consumers must spend more money in the retail stores.

The company I am blogging about (coca-cola) is not a retailer because coke sells to destination stores which market their products.

My boyfriend and I are both students, and we decided it was time for us to purchase another computer, so the natural first step for us was to go to the Apple store and get an idea about what the company has to offer. We went to the apple store on 5th ave and central park south, this store is located at one of the crossroads of the world , the first thing that shocked us was the incredibly large amount of people outside of the store, and also noticed many of them were tourists taking photos of one another with the apple logo. The exterior design was clear glass and it seemed very simple but very futuristic. When we went into the store the atmosphere was greatly influenced by the design that the store was all about new technology. The employees were very friendly and a tentative, once we were spotted we were approached by a young male who seemed very friendly and more important he understood what he was selling, I have been at many other stores in my life, and especially in New-York, salespeople in most stores usually have a specific target market and do not approach everyone that comes into their store because they don’t want to “waste their time” in apple though, the employees seemed to pay attention to everyone and treat them as potential customers, when he started explaining about the MacBook Pro we were looking at we were amazed, the gentleman had an answer for every question we had which was refreshing, in my opinion this is how employees at specialty stores should be trained in terms of knowledge about the products they are selling. After receiving the information we desired about the MacBook pro we decided to check out the I-pod section for two reasons: the first was that we are planning a vacation soon and my “brilliant” boyfriend left our I-pod in his pants during laundry day, and the second was to see if we had been fortunate to experience a single great employee in the laptop section. The answer was clearly NO, the other employees were equally great in their knowledge about the products and also in the quality of their service and attention they provided.

The prices at apple are intact with the quality of the products, not everyone can afford this luxury, however apple and their employees explain to the consumers why they need an apple. The design and organization of the store along with the professionalism of the employees make you feel as if it is your loss if you left the store without making a purchase. We will definitely be back when we get our next salary!

Chapter 6- Consumer desicion making

Consumers of the beverage industry have a wide variety of brands to choose from. However when thinking soda many people will choose coca-cola, what makes coca-cola the leading brand and an obvious brand to consider when an individual is in need of a soda is that coca-cola is out there, it arouses the stimulus of individuals. The stimulus can either be external stimuli which are the influence of advertisement, recommendations, or the look of the brand. The other stimulus aroused is internal and occurs with the realization of the feeling of thirst and the fact the costumer wants to quench it.

In the cases were the stimulus is aroused coca-cola has an advantage over its competitors and can often sway consumer decision making in they’re direction. This is because coca-cola is available in many places and is known by different cultures, when thinking about the external stimuli aroused in an individual we can clearly understand coca-colas edge, wither through recommendations from friends and family, advertisement which is difficult to avoid and also the association of the brand with high quality. Through these methods coca-cola has become what people from different spectrums of society visualize when they think soda.

Coca cola has made a name for itself throughout the past 150 years and continues pursuing new and old marketing techniques, coca-cola succeeds in retaining its “classic” past and also progressing into the future and remaining a part of people’s needs. The pursuit of active marketing brings coca-cola up to date with changes in consumer behavior. The company also promotes itself by cooperating with companies such as six flags, coca cola arouses youngsters especially those who belong to generation y or the twin’s generation to drink coke collect cans and they will gain entry into the amusement parks.

5th chap.- Global marketing

Coca cola is the best global brand on the planet; the company offers its beverages in over 200 countries, serves approximately 1.6 billion servings daily, and employs over 700,000 people around the world. Coca-cola franchises and supplies the concentrate syrup to the owners of the factories around the world. Because coca-cola has factories in so many countries which means they also have employees from all of those countries the company becomes part of a diverse range of cultures and societies, while playing a role and being known in small agricultural communities and also in large urban societies coca-cola aims to bring people together under various slogans such as “Whoever you are, whatever you do, wherever you may be, when you think of refreshment, think of ice cold Coca-Cola”.

Coca-cola sponsors global events; the last FIFA world cup which took place in South Africa was sponsored by coca-cola, regardless of the regular importance of a world cup which a large gathering of nations, the last world cup was the first to ever take place on the continent of Africa, the significance of this for a company is amazing because coca-cola is there when history is being made, during the cup coca-cola along with the musician K’Naan created a remix to one of his songs and they called it the “celebration mix” which was the soundtrack for the tournament and even ranked among the top 10 in many music charts around the world.  Since 1928 coca-cola is also a partner of the Olympic Games and shares the values of the Olympics. Even the last Olympics in china were heavily sponsored by coke. The markets of coca-cola in Asia and especially in China And India which are the largest and most densely populated countries in the world is huge, coca-cola was the first American company to distribute in china after the country opened to foreign companies. Coca-cola works with the Red Cross and their international branch as well, the company continues donating and aiding in disaster response, Coca-cola helps raise public awareness to disasters happening around the world, last year after the earthquake in Haiti coke helped with generous donations and also in campaigns on television.

Although coca-cola provides many of the same brands globally only the top three products are standardized (coke,diet coke, sprite) the rest of their products are meant to suit specific cultures and societies, advertising also has some minor changes among the same brand in different countries, Cola-zero for example is sold as a low calorie drink in the U.S but in Europe it is advertised as a soft drink with no sugar, diet cola as we know it is known as cola light in Spain.  

continuation to chapter 4- target market

As stated previously coca cola targets a very wide market and there are products available for different genders ages and classes, however different products are meant to target  different markets which will potentially be more attracted to specific items, cola-zero is an example of a relatively new product introduced by coke around the globe starting 2004, cola-zero targets mostly males who belong to generation Y,this is because the concept of a soft drink that has less calories appeals to young adult males whom are interested in their appearance and are intimidated by diet cola because it is considered a feminine drink. Coke found the formula of offering a low calorie drink to men and it came in the form of cola-zero.the black and red colors used on the cola zero bottle along with the fact that the product has sponsored countless Nascar races and played a role in advertisements for "quantum of solace" the latest James bond film clearly indicate that men are the main target for the product.