Marketing is one of the back bones of any global industry in any country. As to stay in the market ahead from the competitors, marketing plays the major role in Indian market for soft drinks. The post- liberalization period in India saw the comeback of Cola but Pepsi(one of the major competitor India) had already beaten Coca-Cola to the punch, creatively entering the market in the 1980's in advance of the liberalization by the way of joint venture. Coca-Cola Company benefited from Pepsi creating demand and developing the market for soft drinks. (Kaul, 2004)Coca-Cola Company marketing strategy is based on 3 A's that are Availability, Affordability and Acceptability. The first 'A' is for availability of the product to the customers. The second 'A' is for affordability is for pricing and the third 'A' is for acceptability which stands convincing the customer to buy the product.In 2001 Coca-Cola CEO Douglas Daft set the new direction for next generation of success for global brand with a "Think global, act local" mantra. Recognizing that a single global strategy or single global campaign wouldn't work, locally relevant executions became an increasingly important element of supporting Coke's global brand strategy. Coca-Cola Company re-examined its approach in an attempt to gain leadership in the Indian market and capitalize on significant growth potential in the rural markets. The foundation the new strategy grounded brand positioning and marketing communications in consumer insight, acknowledging that urban versus rural India were two distinct markets on a variety of important dimensions. (Kaul, 2004) In rural market, where both the soft drink category and individual brands were undeveloped, the task was to broaden the brand positioning while in urban markets, with higher category and brand development, the task was to broaden the brand positioning while in urban markets, with higher category and brand development, the task to narrow the brand positioning focusing on differentiation through offering unique and compelling value. (Kaul, 2004)Coca-Cola used two different marketing strategies for each urban and rural market. The first marketing "life ho to aisi" means life as it should be for urban market and the other was "thanda matlab coca cola" which means cool or cold is coca cola which hit the rural target very highly and gain the market very efficiently because the 96% of the population are in rural and developing cities. Coca-Cola Company reduced its rate for the rural market by providing 200ml bottle so that those customers and consumers whose wages are not so high can also have it. (Kaul, 2004) At the same time, Coke invested in distribution infrastructure to effectively serve a disbursed population and doubled the number of retail outlets in rural areas from 80,000 in 2001 to 160,000 in 2003, increasing market penetration from 13 to 25%. As a result of the marketing campaign, Coca-Cola won Advertiser of the year and Campaign of the year 2003. (Kaul, 2004)
đang được dịch, vui lòng đợi..