INTRODUCTION FOR COCA COLA COMPANY

You may know The Coca-Cola Company……

………as the largest beverage company with the most extensive distribution system in
the world. You may know us simply as Coca-Cola--the world's most valuable brand and
a global icon.

The Coca-Cola Company is the world’s leading manufacturer, marketer, and distributor
of nonalcoholic beverage concentrates and syrups. Its world headquarters is based in
Atlanta, Georgia. The company and its subsidiaries employ nearly 31,000 people
around the world. The Coca-Cola Company manufactures syrups, concentrates and
beverage bases for Coca-Cola, the company’s flagship brand, and also produces over
230 other soft-drink brands sold by and its subsidiaries in nearly 200 countries around
the world. Some of Coca-Cola’s latest domestic marketing strategies include Coke
dominating fountain sales. Thousands of consumers visit fast-food restaurants every
day and Coke feels that it is very important to have the consumer see and drink their
product at such chains as McDonalds, Burger King, and Domino’s Pizza. Coca-Cola is
also testing a new plastic cup in the famous Coca-Cola.

Let us introduce you to The Coca-Cola Company you may not know.

The Coca-Cola system's customers are the grocers, retailers, street vendors and store
owners who sell our products to our consumers. We have millions of these partners in
the more than 200 countries where we operate.

The Coca-Cola Company was first established in 1886 by Dr John Styth Pemberton.
Today, the company is the world's leading manufacturer in the beverage industry,
operating globally in more than 200 countries with its head office located in Atlanta,
USA. It produces more than 300 beverage brands and over 1.06 billion drinks are
consumed per day around the world.

Mission Statement

The Coca-Cola Company's mission statement is:

'Remind Coca-Cola is the read thing' but their motto now has changed to 'To benefit and
refresh everyone who is touched by our business.'

Also Coca-Cola would hope to provide the best quality drink for everyone, all the
employees working for them being at their top and fullest.
HISTORY OF COCA COLA
A pharmacist named Dr. John Stith Pemberton invented the refreshing
taste of Coca-Cola in 1886. Concocted by a mixture of caramel-colored syrup in a three
legged brass kettle while in his backyard. He then decided to try to “market” the drink at
Jacobs’ Pharmacy in his hometown of Atlanta, Georgia. For five-cents, customers were
able to enjoy a glass from the soda fountain. An average of nine drinks were sold a day.
In 1891 Dr. John Stith Pemberton sold Coca-Cola for 2,300 to an entrepreneur named
Asa G. Candler. Within the next four years Coca-Cola was distributed throughout the
whole nation. 1893 the Cola-cola trademark and script were patented. The “two C’s
were though to look well for advertising”. In 1899 large-scale bottling becomes possible
when Asa Candler grants Joseph B. Whitehead and Benjamin F. Thomas exclusive
rights for one dollar. But in 1919 Coca-Cola was sold for $25million to a banker in
Atlanta name Ernest Woodruff and a group of investors. That same year, Coca-Cola
sold its first share of stock for forty dollars a share. Assuming all dividends were
reinvested, those original shares would have been worth approximately $6.7 million at
the end of the year.

Coca-Cola (Coke), the world’s largest carbonated soft drink (CSD)

manufacturer had built its brand over the years through consistent and effective
advertising campaigns making history over the years. In the recent times the company
had suffered serious setbacks with a number of controversial and negative allegations
leveled against it. Coke was increasingly being associated with health hazards and was
under threat in many of its key markets. Consumption of CSD, which was its core
business, had decreased and sales fell in Western Europe, Philippines and India. Active
anti-Coke movements had triggered severe criticism from many segments of society
including students, environmentalists, Labor-rights activists, employees and
shareholders. In 2004, Neville Isdell, Coke Chairman and CEO devised a plan to revive
Coke. Called the ‘Manifesto for Growth’, the plan included several strategic initiatives
including innovation, increasing marketing investment and introducing new products in
the non Carbonated Soft Drink market.

As part of the plan to revive the Coke brand, ‘The Coke side of life’, a new
global marketing platform was launched in December 2005. The company believed that
this global campaign would return the company to its former glory. Marketing experts
were however skeptical about this. They wondered if the new marketing campaign
would help offset the myriad charges that beset Coke and help to revive the brand.
What is Promotion?

Promotion
Promotion decisions are those related to communicating and selling to
potential consumers. Since these costs can be large in proportion to the product price, a
break-even analysis should be performed when making promotion decisions. It is useful
to know the value of a customer in order to determine whether additional customers are
worth the cost of acquiring them.

Promotion decisions involve advertising, public relations, media types, etc.

Promotion comes under MARKETING MIX , it is an element of marketing mix.

Marketing decisions generally fall into the following four controllable categories:

Product
Price
Place
Promotion

These four P's are the parameters that the marketing manager can control, subject to
the internal and external constraints of the marketing environment. The goal is to make
decisions that center the four P's on the customers in the target market in order to
create perceived value and generate a positive response
There are so many decisions that can be taken by the marketing manager to decide
about the market conditions of the product and also about the sales of the product.
The ingredients in Borden's marketing mix included product planning, pricing, branding,
distribution channels, personal selling, advertising, promotions, packaging, display,
servicing, physical handling, and fact-finding and analysis. E. Jerome McCarthy later
grouped these ingredients into the four categories that today are known as the 4 P's of
marketing, depicted below:
PROMOTION DECISIONS
In the context of the marketing mix, promotion represents the various aspects of
marketing communication, that is, the communication of information about the product
with the goal of generating a positive customer response. Marketing communication
decisions include:

Promotional strategy (push, pull, etc.)

Advertising
Personal selling & sales force
Sales promotions
Public relations & publicity
Marketing communications budget
Promotional strategies and practices:

PROMOTION:

Telling the customer about the product
Promotion is typically sub-divided into
o Mass Selling
Advertising - which you pay for
Publicity - which is free
o Sales Promotion
Stuff you do in the store to get the customer to try the product
Contests, coupons, free samples
o Personal Selling
Direct contact person2person with a potential customer
Sometimes for large industrial sales

Sometimes for high quality consumer products, like selling a car


Whereand when can you get across your marketing messages to your target
market?

Willyou reach your audience by advertising in the press, or on TV, or radio, or on
billboards? By using direct marketing mailshot? Through PR? On the Internet?

When is the best time to promote? Is there seasonality in the market? Are there any
wider environmental issues that suggest or dictate the timing of your market launch,
or the timing of subsequent promotions?

How do your competitors do their promotions? And how does that influence your
choice of promotional activity?

PROMOTIONAL STRATEGIES
 A successful product or service means nothing unless the benefit of such a
service can be communicated clearly to the target market. An organizations promotional
strategy can consist of several aspects as follows.

Advertising: Is any non-personal paid form of communication using any form of mass
media.

Public relations: Involves developing positive relationships with the organization media
public. The art of good public relations is not only to obtain favorable
publicity within the media, but it is also involves being able to handle
successfully negative attention.

Sales promotion: Commonly used to obtain an increase in sales short term. Could
Involve using money off coupons or special offers.

Personal selling: Selling a product service one to one.

Direct Mail: Is the sending of publicity material to a named person within an

organization. There has been a massive growth in direct mail campaigns
over the last 5 years. Spending on direct mail now amounts to £18 bn a year
representing 11.8% of advertising expenditure (Source: Royal Mail 2000).
Organizations can pay thousands of pounds for databases, which contain names and
addresses of potential customers.

Direct mail allows an organization to use their resources more effectively

by allowing them to send publicity material to a named person within their target
segment. By personalizing advertising, response rates increase thus increasing the
chance of improving sales. Listed below are links to organization who's business
involves direct mail.

Message & Media Strategy

An effective communication campaign should comprise of a well thought

out message strategy. What message are you trying to put across to your target
audience? How will you deliver that message? Will it be through the appropriate use of
branding? Logos or slogan design?. The message should reinforce the benefit of the
product and should also help the company in developing the positioning strategy of the
product. Companies with effective message strategies include:

Push & Pull Strategies

There are three types of sales promotion strategies:

A push strategy
A pull strategy or
A combination of the two

A 'push' sales promotion strategy involves 'pushing' distributors and retailers to sell your
products and services to the consumer by offering various kinds of promotions and
personal selling efforts. What happens here is that a company promotes their
product/services to a reseller who in turn promotes it to another reseller or to the
consumer. The basic objective of this strategy is to persuade retailers, wholesalers and
distributors to carry your brand, give it shelf space, promote it by advertising, and
ultimately 'push' it forward to the consumer. Typical push sales promotion strategies
include; buy-back guarantees, free trials, contests, discounts, and specialty advertising
items.

A 'pull' sales promotion strategy focuses more on the consumer instead of the reseller
or distributor. This strategy involves getting the consumer to 'pull' or purchase the
product/services directly from the company itself. This strategy targets its marketing
efforts directly on the consumers with the hope that it will stimulate interest and demand
for the product. This pull strategy is often used when distributors are reluctant to carry or
distribute a product. Typical pull sales promotion strategies include; samples, coupons,
cash refunds or rebates, loyalty programs and rewards, contests, sweepstakes, games,
and point-of purchase displays.

A 'combination' sales promotion strategy is just that; it is a combination of a push and a

pull strategy. It focuses both on the distributor as well as the consumers, targeting both
parties directly. It offers consumer incentives side by side with dealer discounts.
Communication by the manufacturer is not only directed towards consumers to create
demand. A push strategy is where the manufacturer concentrates some of their
marketing effort on promoting their product to retailers to convince them to stock the
product. A combination of promotional mix strategies are used at this stage aimed at the
retailer including personal selling, and direct mail. The product is pushed onto the
retailer, hence the name. A pull strategy is based around the manufacturer promoting
their product amongst the target market to create demand. Consumers pull the product
through the distribution channel forcing the wholesaler and retailer to stock it, hence the
name pull strategy. Organizations tend to use both push and pull strategies to create
demand from retailers and consumers.

LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY

The following are some of the major limitations of the study.

Even though every effort is made to complete all areas of the project: it still
has its own limitations. Due to cost and time constraints the sample size was
restricted to 32 store managers.

This study is pertaining to certain organization that is Hindustan Coco Cola

Beverages Pvt Ltd. The results may not be applicable to other organization
and it is strictly for the academic purpose only.

The tools used for analysis has its own limitations.

 Managers have got their own limitations in regards to some questions like
store sales information etc..

The store mangers were not co-operated properly because of time.

NEED FOR THE STUDY:

A study on the Promotional Strategies can help us to know the customer’s

reaction and response towards the offers and all promotion activities about COKE
products and the perception of the target customer. It can also useful to know the
services that can provide by the company to the customers, in increase of sales of the
company and create a brand image.

OBJECTIVES

1. To identify the taste and preferences of the target customer’s

2. To know the customer’s reaction about coke offers.

3. To know the competitors promotional strategies.

4. To know the customer satisfaction towards coke products

5. To know the modern trade characteristics

6. To know the coke share in the store.

7. To know the coke sales in 32 outlets.

8. To know the customer’s perception.

SCOPE OF THE STUDY

This Study consists around 32 outlets in Hyderabad. This ultimate task was to
identify customer’s perception regarding the switchgear products of the company. This
study also consists of development suggestions and modifications given by the
customer’s
 RESEARCH METHDOLOGY

QUESTIONNAIRE DESIGN

Questionnaire is the heart of the survey operation. This is a structured

questionnaire, which has been framed for conducting the survey. The questionnaire was
presented with exactly the same wordings and in the same order to all of the
respondents.

DATA COLLECTION

Data refers to information or facts. It includes numerical figures, non-

numerical figures, descriptive facts and qualitative and quantitative information. The
task of data collection begins after a research problem has been defined and research
problem has been defined and research plan has been decided.

Data could be broadly classified as follows:

Primary data
Secondary data

PRIMARY DATA

Primary data is known as the data collected for the first time through field
surveys and thus happens to be original in character. Such data are collected with
specified set of objectives to assess the current status of any variables studied. The
primary data used for this project was collected using questionnaires. The information
was collected from the store managers of Food World Outlets.

SECONDARY DATA

Secondary data refers to the information or facts already collected

and available for reference from sources such as library, website etc. Secondary data
about the company profile and other details were collected from the company website
and through personal discussion with the company human resource manager.

The secondary data on the other hand, are those which have already been
collected by someone else and which have already been passed through the statistical
reports.

The sources of gathering secondary data are detailed as follows:

 1. The company’s annual records
2. The company’s trade journals
3. Company manuals and magazines
4. Websites

SALES PROMOTION STRATEGY

Sales are the lifeblood of a business, without sales there would be no
business in the first place; therefore it is very important that if a business wants to
succeed, it should have a sales promotion strategy in mind. The primary objective of a
sales promotion is to improve a company's sales by predicting and modifying your target
customer's purchasing behavior and patterns. Sales promotion is very important as it
not only helps to boost sales but it also helps a business to draw new customers while
at the same time retaining older ones. There are a variety of sales promotional
strategies that a business can use to increase their sales, however it is important that
we first understand what a sales promotion strategy actually is and why it is so
important.

A sales promotion strategy is an activity that is designed to help boost the

sales of a product or service. This can be done through an advertising campaign, public
relation activities, a free sampling campaign, a free gift campaign, a trading stamps
campaign, through demonstrations and exhibitions, through prize giving competitions,
through temporary price cuts, and through door-to-door sales, telemarketing, personal
sales letters, and emails. The importance of a sales promotion strategy cannot be
underestimated. This is because a sales promotion strategy is important to a business
boosting its sales.

When developing a sales promotion strategy for your business, it is important that you
keep the following points in mind.

Consumer attitudes and buying patterns
Your brand strategy
Your competitive strategy
Your advertising strategy
And other external factors that can influence your products availability and
pricing.

METHODS OF PROMOTION

Some of the most common methods used in sales promotion strategies

include:


Coupons
Price discounting
Gift with purchase offers
Sweepstakes
Sampling
Mail in offers and rebates
Refund and premium offers
Group promotions
Frequent user/loyalty incentives
Point-of-sale displays
Sponsorships for special events (like fun runs)
Participation in community projects and boards of directors
Trade Shows - Your product or service might be one that is suited to exhibiting
at a trade show attended by your target audience. Trade shows are typically
one- or two day events that allow businesses to set up exhibits or booths
showcasing their products or capabilities.
Fairs (like Health Fairs, Job Fairs)
Give-aways (like baseball caps and mugs with your logo)
Coupons and free samples
Conducting contests
Public Speaking and Conferences
Newsletters
Trade journals
Media Relations Campaigns
Representation by experts
Public service announcements
Press kits

PROMOTIONAL OBJECTIVES

To promote your business successfully, you have to understand who you

need to reach and what you are trying to achieve.

Promotional strategies should focus first and foremost on your existing

customers. Make sure they are aware of the full range of your products and services
and create opportunities to generate repeat and higher value purchases. You should
also be getting your existing customers to spread the word about your business -
perhaps by trying out new products and services and offering rewards for introducing
new customers.

When focusing your promotional activities on potential customers, aim to

create brand awareness and credibility. Ensure they understand your offer and how you
differ from your competitors. Once you really get into detail, you might even find yourself
promoting individual products differently to different groups of customers.
 If you use intermediaries to reach your market, you will also have to
encourage them to promote your offer to their customers.