The 4Ps of coca-cola

INTRODUCTION Coca-cola
HISTORY Type: Public Founded: 1892 by Asa Griggs Candler Headquarters: Atlanta, Georgia, USA Industry: Beverage Revenue: U.S.$35.11 billion (2010) Employees: 1.39 Lac (2010) Products Beverages: Web site: www.cocacola .com

How it all started Coca-cola was invented in 1886 by Dr John Pemberton, a pharmacist from
Atlanta in the United States of America. Originally, coca leaves and cola nuts were used to give flavor to the drink. His aide and accountant friend Frank Robinson suggested the name for the product that was initially concocted as a tonic. The same person also penned the now famous script of Coca-cola running letters. Initially, Coca-cola was sold as a patent medicine for five cents a glass at soda fountains-it was positioned as a medicine that would cure dyspepsia, headache, and impotence. The popular belief that carbonated water is good for health actually

helped its cause. The trademark of Coca-colasimply known as Coke is widely regarded as the most recognizable logo in the world. In 1888, Asa Griggs Candler bought the rights of Coca-cola from James Pemberton and incorporated the Coca-Cola Company. Aggressive marketing followed and soon Coca-cola became an American icon. The Coca-cola bottles appeared in 1894 and the cans in 1955. During World War II, Coca-cola set up bottling plants in new territories and ensured uninterrupted supplies of Coca-cola to American soldiers on the battle front. This made a strong bond with the battle weary soldiers. In fact, during the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbour, empty Coca-cola bottles were used to collect and store blood at the hospitals. Today Coca-cola is the most popular and biggest-selling soft drink in history, as well as the best known product in the world. It is available in the following flavours: Cola, Cola Green Tea, Cola Lemon, Cola Lemon Lime, Cola Lime, Cola orange, and Cola raspberry.

MARKETING MIX
Definition
The 'marketing mix' is a set of controllable, tactical marketing tools that work together to achieve company's objectives

Four Ps
Product In marketing, a product is anything that can be offered to a market that might satisfy a want or need. It is of two types: Tangible (physical) and Intangible (non-physical). Since services have been at the forefront of all modern marketing strategies, some intangibility has become essential part of marketing offers. It is therefore the complete bundle of benefits or satisfactions that buyers perceive they will obtain if they purchase the product. It is the sum of all physical, psychological, symbolic, and service attributes, not just the physical merchandise. All products offered in a market can be placed between Tangible (Pure Product) and Intangible (Pure Service) spectrum.

A product is similar to goods. In accounting, goods are physical objects that are available in the marketplace. This differentiates them from a service, which is a non-material product. The term goods is used primarily by those that wish to abstract from the details of a given product. As such it is useful in accounting and economic models. The term product is used primarily by those that wish to examine the details and richness of a specific market offering. As such it is useful to marketers, managers, and quality control specialists.

A service is a non-material or intangible product - such as professional consultancy, serving, or an entertainment experience. Coke Product

The Coca-Cola formula is The Coca-Cola Company's secret recipe for Coca-Cola. As a publicity marketing strategy started by Robert W. Woodruff, the company presents the formula as one of the most closely held trade secrets ever and only a few employees know or have access to. This Coca-Cola formula appears to be the original formula to Coca-Cola. It is from the book For God, Country and Coca-Cola.

The company Coca-cola is a multinational and it is not limited to one product. Through the years they have invented and introduced many products than their main cola drinks. The list of Cocacola brands are as follows:

Appletiser Aquarius BPM Energy Barq's Beat soda Beverly Cannings Crush Citra Cheers Ciel Coca-Cola Black Cherry Vanilla Coca-Cola Blak Coca-Cola C2 Coca-Cola Cherry Coca-Cola Citra Coca-Cola M5 Coca-Cola Zero Coca-Cola Coca-Cola with Lemon Coca-Cola with Lime Dasani Delaware Punch Diet Coke Fanta Fanta Citrus Fioravanti Fresca Frisco

Lemon & Paeroa Lift Lift plus Lilt Manzana Lift Mare Rosso Mello Yello Mezzo Mix Minute Maid Nestea New Coke Nordic Mist OK Soda Pibb Xtra Powerade Qoo Raspberry Coke Relentless Sarsi Senzao Simply Orange Smart Sparkle Sprite Sprite Ice Sprite Remix Sprite Zero Surge Swerve Tab Tab Clear

Fruitopia Frutonic Full Throttle Georgia Hi-C Hit Kia-Ora Kinley

Tab Energy Tab X-Tra Tiky Vault

Price
In economics and business, the price is the assigned numerical monetary value of a good, service or asset. Price is also central to marketing where it is one of the four variables in the marketing mix that business people use to develop a marketing plan. Pricing is a big part of the marketing mix. Choosing the right price and the right pricing strategy is crucial to the marketing process. The price of the product is not something that is fixed. On the other hand the price of the product depends on many other factors. Some times the price of the product has got nothing to do with the actual product itself. The price may act as a way to attract target customers. The price of the product is decided keeping many things in mind. These things include factors like cost incurred on the product, target market, competitors, consumer buying capacity etc.

Coke - Price
Coke was a company ruling the markets before Pepsi entered. Earlier the price of coke was cost based i.e. it was decided on the cost which was spent on making the product plus the profit and other expenses.

But after the emergence of other companies especially the likes of Pepsi, Coca-cola started with a pricing strategy based on the basis of competition. Nowadays more expenses are spent on advertising my soft-drink companies rather than on manufacturing. Few year before Coke has brought in a revolution especially in Indian markets with the Rs. 5 pricing strategy which was very famous. It was the first company to introduce the small bottle of Coke for just Rs 5. This campaign was very successful especially with the price conscious Indian consumers. Even today most prices of Coke are decided on the basis of the competition in the market.

Place
Place is a term that has a variety of meanings in a dictionary sense, but which is principally used in a geographic sense as a noun to denote location, though in a sense of a location identified with that which is located there.

Coke - Place
Coke is a multinational company and it has its market around the entire world. This can be said just by the first page on its site which asks people to select the place of their choice. The website looks something like this:

Promotion
Promotion is one of the four aspects of marketing. Promotion comprises four subcategories: Advertising Personal selling Sales promotion Publicity and public relations

The specification of these four variables creates a promotional mix or promotional plan. A promotional mix specifies how much attention to pay to each of the four subcategories, and how much money to budget for each. A promotional plan can have a wide range of objectives, including: sales increases, new product acceptance, creation of brand equity, positioning, competitive retaliations, or creation of a corporate image.

Coca-Cola is famous for its advertisements be it Aamir Khans Thanda Matlab Coca-Cola or the recent advertisement where children play cricket in the ground and have coca-cola. Coca-cola has always marked its presence in the market with innovative and new ads.

The following statistic just tells of much of share of ads on TV are captured by these players.

In fact in the next graph you can see how many programs are sponsored by cola companies and the leader among them is Pepsi. Mainly Pepsi is the company sponsoring most cricket telecasts happening in India and spends most of its revenue in that field.

Nowadays both Coke is going in for Brand Ambassadors to promote their product. These brand ambassadors are famous people who usually people idolize and people can relate to them. The following pictures do not need any explanation as people are familiar with the celebrities and can thus quickly identify with the product.

A list of Celebrities that are brand ambassadors for Coke company are as follows. These celebrities are not only asked to work in the advertisements but they also have to use the product promoted by them and they should not use the companies rivals products.

CELEBRITY ENDORSMENT IN 2008-09

COCA-COLA Amir Khan Hrithik Roshan Ganesh Gautam Gambhir Virender Sehwag Shahrukh Khan

Compiled By: Luv Joukani P12018