The Real Lesson of New Coke: The Value of Focus Groups for Predicting the Effects of Social Influence By Robert M. Schindler n April 1985, the management of Coca-Cola Co. announced its decision to change the flavor of the cotnpany 's flagship brand. The events that followed from this decision, as well as the faetors which led up to it, have been reviewed, discussed, and extensively analyzed in the popular press, the trade press, and in marketing textbooks. Two books and at least two marketing cases have been written on the events surrounding the flavor change decision. Also, a well-known, but somewhat older Harvard Business School marketing case deals with some of the key events which led up to the decision. Despite the extent of this …show more content…
The Attempt to Reformulate Coca-Cola T 22 he 87-year old rivalry between CocaCola, the traditional market leader, and Pepsi Cola, the perennial runner up, took an unexpected turn in the mid1970s. Pepsi 's consumer research discovered in blind taste tests that a majority of consumers preferred the taste of Pepsi over thai of Coke. In fact, even a majority of loyal Coke drinkers reported preferring Pepsi in the tests. Decetnber1992 silver graphics replacing the traditional red and white look. Clearly. Coke had decided to make sure that consumers would be aware that Coca-Cola 's flavor was being changed. The initial reactions of most consumers appeared to be positive. Many bottlers reported that sales of new Coke were greater than expected and. during the first few weeks after the new Coke introduction, the company 's weekly survey of 900 respondents showed consumers preferring new Coke over old Coke by a margin of 53% to 47%. However, during this period, there was also intense media coverage of those consumers who did not like the new Coke and were angry about the change. In a number of cities, old Coke loyalists sponsored protest rallies and boycotts and received widespread media attention. By June, it was becoming apparent to Coke 's management that consumer dissatisfaction with the reformulation was increasing. The stream of angry letters and phone calls was becoming a flood, and weekly
The traditional change model consists of three steps: unfreezing, i.e. recognizing the need for change because of some event or threat, the actual change actions and refreezing, i.e. incorporating new ways of operating and thinking into everyday operations of the organization. Apply this model to the situation at the coca-cola company at the point when the lawsuit was served in 1999.
Coca-Cola is sold in over 200 countries and had for years done very well in Brazil. A closer look at Coca-Cola's Brazilian market is presented in an article in the Thunderbird (published by the Garvin School of International Management), which delves into the profit problems that Coca-Cola had in Brazil in the early part of the decade of the 2000s. The article, published in 2004, points out that the fast growth of "off-brand" soft drinks, called tubainas, has taken away profits from Coca-Cola, and created huge marketing problems for the giant soft drink corporation. This review of the article, "Coca-Cola's Marketing Challenges in Brazil: The Tubainas War " written by Gertner, et al explores the issues that Coca-Cola has had to deal with in attempting to gain a bigger share of the soft drink market in Brazil.
This case study is the story of Coca-Cola, its history and the report about one of the most fascinating stories about the company this is still regarded by many as a mysterious case: “the introduction of the new Coke”.
Marketing strategies began to take broader dimensions as the soft drink industry continued to expand and became more complex. In 1976, Pepsi introduced the Pepsi Challenge in its campaigns, a moved that directly challenged Coca-Cola’s longstanding dominance. In 1985, responding to the pressure of the taste tests, which Pepsi always won, Coca-Cola decided to change its formula. This move set off a shock wave across America. Consumers angrily demanded that the old formula be returned, and Coca-Cola responded three months later with Classic Coke. Five years after the infamous Coke fiasco, the Coca-Cola
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
In the analysis for the adoption of the three theoretical perspectives, the Coca-Cola Company shall be used because of its existence as early as the 19th century (Ford, Stephens, & Cooper, 2007). Coca-Cola is the biggest company in the world dealing with the production and marketing of soft beverages. Moreover, it has one
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
Throughout the years Coca-Cola has kept the same logo. They did this by using the same font just slightly changing the background to make it more favorable for the current generation. This has left a
The company known as Coca-Cola today was started in September of 1919, but the first Coke brand was served as early as 1886. Since that time it has grown to be one of the most globally recognized brand names with a stock value of $167 billion. Coke’s plan has always been developed with the future in mind. Right away the company realized that it was more profitable to manufacture the concentrate used to make carbonated drinks than to bottle it. From that point on they saw the entire world, not simply the originating country, as their desired market. It seems only practical that the company should pursue this agenda until conquered then focus the effort on expanding into different product lines. This logical
The Coca-Cola organization has made exemplary strides mainly to offer a variety of products to its clients even with the competitive nature of the market. Consumers’ choice gets based on the brand aspect in which the organization wins most customers' heart against its rivals. Even though a significant number of people deny cases to having inclination picking between Coca-Cola items or its rivals', many have a strong desire in some way. Many inclines toward Coca-Cola products since the organization has more than hundred years of history and predictable brand image. This picture is engraved in a lot of people subsequently end up purchasing their beverages. It is out rightly conspicuous in the company’s high market share in the field of soft drinks.
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.
Coca-Cola has been around for generations with the same iconic taste, logo and symbolism. Its brand has represented family and the memories of good times, celebrations and comfort of being with those we love. Unfortunately, the company has not made good marketing decisions in the recent past and has lost relevancy. The purpose of this essay is to assess the conditions that created Coca-Colas marketing problems, evaluate the future of healthy beverages and non-carb drink brand extensions, and provide recommendations to the management.
Last year, Coca-cola saw its sales decreased in the European market. In order to increase the sales, Coca-Cola needs to define a new strategic communications plan. As mentioned above the image of Coca-Cola has been damaged quite a lot for the past 2 years by different factors. A hard work needed to deal with consequences of this damage in the image of the company.