Coca-Cola targets everyone in bid to double profits
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Coca-Cola is targeting the emerging middle classes, ageing customers and younger, more environmentally-conscious consumers in a bid to double its revenue by 2020.
The soft drinks maker, which already has revenue in the region of £100bn, will also attempt to double daily servings to over three billion and be the ‘number 1’ non-alcoholic ready-to-drink brand in every market and every category within a decade.
The vision was laid out during a two-day investor meeting in Atlanta, where chairman and chief executive, Muhtar Kent, said the company was “laser-focused” on targeting the right consumers with fully integrated global marketing campaigns that work on many levels, across many geographies and cultures, and leverage a “rich variety” of media and channels.
Coca-Cola believes emerging markets will be key to the strategy. In the third quarter, the company’s profit rose less than 1%, though the results were buoyed by stronger performance in emerging markets with unit case volume growth of 15% and 37% in China and India respectively.
By 2020, the company says the world will look very different, hence the “right consumers” will include the increased numbers of middle class people living in urban areas.
Kent says there will also be a renewed focus on older, wealthier consumers. “To target aging and affluent consumer globally, we are actively exploring new ingredients, new functionality and new occasions. At the same time we are creating new strategies that are winning over a massive new generation of teens to drive growth of Trademark Coca-Cola.”
The company will also be upping its game in Brazil ahead of the 2014 World Cup, and plans to open a ‘green’ plant in the country.
Sustainability features strongly in the company’s vision. Its aim is to be “the global leader” in sustainable water use, while leading the industry in terms of energy, climate protection and packaging.
Coke said it expected to have two billion of its “PlantBottle”, which is made partially out of plants, in production by the end of next year.
Meanwhile, PepsiCo recently announced plans to boost its global ad spend next year, putting more weight behind its Gatorade brand.
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Readers' comments (4)
Caroline Johnson | Tue, 17 Nov 2009 5:13 pm
The fact that Coca-Cola wishes to market to everyone, whilst also adopting a targeted approach, sounds like a contradiction, as does the localised execution of global marketing plans. At Serendipity2, however, we know first-hand just how zealous this client is about data-driven marketing. As a retained Coca-Cola agency, we work closely with the UK marketing team to ensure that all sales and promotional activity is underpinned by the best possible intelligence.
We do this by combining otherwise disparate internal databases, and by augmenting and authenticating this data via external sources; effectively creating a single customer view for every outlet Coca-Cola does business with. These outlets are then classed into distinct consumer-driven outlet types (Fast Food, Supermarkets, Restaurants, etc) and cross-analysed against prospect outlets, distribution points, consumer demographics, workplace locations, etc, to provide a full picture of the marketplace.
This insight enables Coca-Cola to plan strategic activity (promotions, new product launches, equipment roll-outs, etc) in an incredibly targeted way, and down to a very localised level. This focused approach makes them the best in breed and provides the ideal foundation for meeting their ambitious 2020 targets.
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Paul Tagent | Mon, 23 Nov 2009 7:06 am
Re your comment Caroline, I totally agree. How does a global brand exlusively target everyone?! In addition, I would like to know what sort of market research had been conducted.
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Aaron Shields | Mon, 23 Nov 2009 10:55 am
I think we need to put aside the question of whether or not a brand can target evryone. If any brand is capable of successful marketing, Coke has to be considered a force to reckon with.
I think the more interesting quetion is whether such a large company should push a cola beverage to be the most widely consumed drink globally.
Coke has a varried portfolio and drinks that are healthier than the high-sugar super brand. Customers (that is, all of us) will no doubt notice the push in marketing. How will people respond to a company pushing a product that they know is less healthy than the alternatives. Did McDonald's not try this strategy before shifting the product itself?
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Michael Faris | Wed, 25 Nov 2009 11:05 am
It seems feasable to me that Coca Cola can market to 'everyone' and still be targetted.
Coca-Cola have a number of sub brands designed to target different groups of people with different needs. As long as they engage in proper segmentation, devise a unique strategy to approach each segment and market to that audience accordingly they could be successful (though whether they can achive such an ambitious goal remains to be seen)
It's this kind of investment in 'proper' marketing the industry needs rather than the constant corner cutting that is so common when times are hard.
More power to them, that's what I say!
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