Coca Cola

In class this week we watched a video about the history of Coca Cola and their marketing success's and failures.  I don't think there is to much need for an introductions as Coca Cola is one of the most recognizable brands on the planet.  Coke was introduced to the world back in 1886 intended to be patent medicine.  Coke was brought to the soft drink market by Asa Griggs Candler turned coke into what it is today, the worlds most known soft drink.  Coke is popular for more reasons than the fact that it tastes good.  They are one of the best marketed products in the world.


The movie tells you many different marketing tactics that Coke has used, but I'm only going to be able to talk about a couple.  The book defines exporting as "selling products to another country".  Coke currently sells their product in more than 200 countries.  There is many benefits to exporting.  First of all, your product simply gets seen by more people.  The larger number of potential buyers that see your product, the better the chance you'll get someone to buy it.  This is part of the reason Coke runs so many T.V. commercials.  They want to get their brand out there, and they have done it extremely successfully.  Coke has also made an effort to make friends with these other countries.  The movie shows a few interviews with people in Africa.  They both talk about Coke treats everyone well.  One of them said "everyone who touches the product, profits".  I can't think about anything that will make business owners happier than making a profit.  Coke will continue to dominate as they get more popular around the world.  

Now I'm going to talk about one of Coke's marketing failures (if you want to call it a failure).  Coke tried to introduce a new coke in 1985 as Pepsi became serious competition to them.  This was considered one of the biggest marketing blunders of all time.  Coke quickly decided to recall the product because the public was extremely unhappy.  People loved what they had, it was something they had been drinking for a long time and they didn't want to take it away.  Coke made to huge deal of this and when they came back with the original coke it was more popular than ever.  Some people think the whole ordeal was planned to get people to drink coke again.  Weather it was planned or not I think the lesson learned here is to take the customers side.  They introduced the new coke because they thought it would be better instead of asking their loyal customers.