Cola Wars: Case Study: Cola Wars

     PepsiCo. Incorporated and The Coca-Cola Company are the two largest and oldest archrivals in the carbonated soft drink (CSD) industry. Coca-Cola was invented and first marketed in 1886, followed by Pepsi Cola in 1898. Coca-Cola was named after the coca leaves and kola nuts John Pemberton used to make it, and Pepsi Cola after the beneficial effects its creator, Caleb Bradham, claimed it had on dyspepsia. The rivalry between the soda giants, also known as the "Cola Wars", began in the 1960’s when Coca-Cola's dominance was being increasingly challenged by Pepsi Cola. The competitive environment between the rivals was intense and well-publicized, forcing both companies to continuously establish and

Rivalry: The rivalry between Coca-Cola and Pepsi is extremely high; however, both companies continue to remain profitable. Prior to the 1980s, pricing wars negatively affected profitability for Coca-Cola and Pepsi. After Coca-Cola renegotiated its franchise bottling contract and both companies increased concentrate prices, the rivalry began to focus on differentiation and advertising strategies. Through creative advertising campaigns, such as the “Pepsi Challenge” where Pepsi ran blind taste tests to demonstrate that consumers

Firstly, the author introduces the history of the Coca-Cola; and how the brand is successfully developing into the most popular brand and ruling the soft drink world by outstanding products, good leadership, correct strategic decisions, completely distribution system, significant culture accomplishment, impressive marketing campaigns and publicities. But, they also had several problems in the 70s, which result in losing the market position at retail. At the same time, Pepsi, as the main competitor of Coca-Cola, started to make inroads by successfully launching the “Pepsi Generation” and “Pepsi Challenge”. Those kinds of efforts led to a rapid increase in Pepsi market share and strongly hit the brand image of Coca-Cola. Because of the severe situation, the leaders of Coca-Cola decided to change the formula of old Coke with marketing research supporting. So, the New Coke with a smoother and sweeter taste had been launched in April 1985. But out of expected, after launching the new taste soon, many customers boycotted the New Coke, and the market share of the company still decline. The company had to re-launch classic

The competition between Coke and Pepsi reached its peak to become a real war battle by the year 1980. This war had affected the industry profit for both concentrate producers and bottlers, while the effect of bottlers was much higher. After the successful “Pepsi Challenge” (blind taste tests: sales shot up) in 1974, Coke countered with rebates, retail price cuts and significant concentrate price increases. Pepsi followed of a 15% price increase of its own. During the early 1990’s bottlers of Coke and Pepsi employed low price strategies in the supermarket channel in order to compete with store brands. The concentrate producers were always able to increase their profits by increasing the concentrate price, while the bottlers, especially the

For more than a century, Coca Cola and PepsiCo have been the major competitors within the soft drink market. By employing various advertising tactics, strategies such as blind taste tests, and reward initiatives for the consumer, they have grown to become oligopolistic rivals. In the soft-drink business, “The Coca-Cola Company” and “PepsiCo, Incorporated” hold most of the market shares in virtually every region of the world. They have brands that the consumers want, whether it be soft-drink brands or in PepsioCo’s case, snacks. With only one soft-drink market, the two competitors have no choice but to increase sales by stealing the other competitor’s clients. This led to the term, the “cola wars” which was first used

The Concentrate Producer industry can be classified as a Duopoly with Pepsi and Coke as the firms competing. The market share of the rest of the competition is too small to cause any upheaval of pricing or industry structure. Pepsi and Coke mainly over the years competed on differentiation and advertising rather than on pricing except for a period in the 1990’s. This prevented a huge dent in profits. Pricing wars are however a feature in their international expansion strategies.

As mention before, Coca-cola has 47.3 percent market share in the country’s cola market versus Pepsi which hold 44.5 percent. Coca-cola is also the brand known around the worlds, which are the largest producer and distributor of ark colas in the world. Even in the current monetary crisis, the company continues to expand and the financial position shows that Coca-cola has a strong cash position in compare to PepsiCo which the long term debt of PepsiCo is so high.

As the Coca Cola company has come a long way from advertising a few servings of sparkling drinks in a pharmacy, to a worldwide business. Coca Cola’s loyalty to remain at the front of the shifting public values in increasing their promotion tactics has confirmed to their plus. Without any confusion The Coca Cola Company has developed all the basics necessary to run a multimillion, worldwide venture and it refreshes all the people that come in contact their

In an industry dominated by two heavyweight contenders, Coke and Pepsi, in fact, between 1996 and 2004 per capita consumption of carbonated soft drinks (CSD) remained between 52 to 54 gallons per year. Consumption grew by an average of 3% per year over the next three decades. Fueling this growth were the increasing availability of CSD, the introduction of diet and flavored varieties, and brand extensions. There is couple of reasons why the industry is so profitable such as market share, availability and diversity and brand name and world class marketing.

Another important weakness is that the company’s products are seen as a major cause of obesity. (Melser, 2013) The beverage sales are affected by various factors including change in trends and preferences. Recently, beverage sales have fallen because of people’s increased preference for the health drinks. Around the world, obesity is a major problem and the Coca Cola products are seen as a major cause of obesity. As people are getting health conscious they are moving towards low calorie healthy drinks. This affects coca cola’s profitability and popularity. However, the brand can overcome this situation by increasing the number of low calorie products in its brand portfolio. It will need to add more healthy choices for its customers in its product portfolio.

These two-company’s economic characteristic include their market size and growth rate from the early 2000’s to 2010. Coke and Pepsi have struggled for years in the carbonated and non-alcoholic sector. According to Barbara Murray (2006c) "But as the pop fight has topped out, the industry 's giants have begun relying on new product flavors and looking to noncarbonated beverages for growth.” (Murry, 2006). For instance, Coke boasts in the advertisement as the king of the soft drink; as a consumer of both products, I agree. About 15 years ago, I was selected to participate in a critiquing of Coke and Pepsi products. Additionally, my travel to Africa in 2007 and 2010 provided the same raving review for the Coke Cola products. Apparently, Coke and Pepsi have been rivals for ages locally, regionally, nationally, multinational, and globally, therefore, one expects them to have an on-going rivalry when marketing the high-energy beverages.

The case explains the economics of the soft drink industry. There activities that add value to consumer at nearly every stage of the value chain of the soft drink industry. The war is primarily fought between Coca-Cola and PepsiCo as market leaders in this industry; who combined have roughly a ninety percent market share in their industry. The impact of globalization on competition has allowed both of these major players to find new markets to tap which has allowed each continued growth potential.

Coca-Cola Company has realized significant growth since its establishment to become a global leader in the marketing, manufacturing, and distribution of syrup and soft drinks. Out of the four generic strategies, the company has followed the differentiation strategy to make its products unique in the market. Its interest is to maximize the market share through the development of the most innovative products and the establishment of effective strategies to influence the customer’s decisions. In such a way, the company has integrated various strategies to ensure that desirable results are attained in the market. Its strategic choices align with the differentiation strategy in an attempt to make its products unique and meet diverse market requirements. To reduce its weaknesses, the company should consider exploiting key opportunities in the market including venturing in the packaging of water, promotion of new brands, and launching of healthy products. In particular, the vision and mission statement of Coca-Cola seems to have reconfirmed and changed in this process of company’s strategic analysis.

“Coca-Cola brands are available to consumers throughout the world. Today they account for 1.7 billion servings of all beverages consumed worldwide daily. Coca-Cola has the edge in the market and because they are first to capitalize on new consumer trends. They continue to focus on continuous operating improvements, and they are ever changing to meet market demands. Pepsi Co satisfies the needs of its customers with the wide variety of products offered. They also have the different type of beverage or snack and its brands can substitute for each other. Coco-Cola and Pepsi Co is known as the top 100 most valuable brands in the world.

Coca-Cola is the number one non-alcoholic beverage in the world and is also the golden standard in the beverage industry. Over the pass decade carbonated beverage sales has decrease which has lead Coca-Cola to seek for new opportunity and investor. Contribution of US soda sales in Coca-Cola’s revenue could decline to less than 15% by 2020. By the end of 2017 Coca-Cola is looking to refranchise two-thirds of its bottling territories in North America. The outcome of Coca-Cola refranchise two-third of its bottling territories will reduce the revenue to Coca-Cola sales of its products, however the operating margin will increase. Also, this could reduce the percentage contribution by the U.S to Coca-Cola overall revenue.