The drinks market is a huge business that can earn a company a lot of money if they can get their product to sell, not only is the taste important so is the image they portray to the consumer. For this research I will be looking at Pepsi and Coca-Cola and comparing their market strategies, looking at:
· Target audience
· Demographic
· Geographic
· Gender
The target audience for both of these companies is quite different: Coca-Cola (Coke) aims its products, and associated advertising, at a wide target audience. Because it is a long established household brand they use their exiting consumer base to expand their audience and reach more people. They have a target market in the 13-24 age groups for their original product, but because of their long running brand and leading status in the market, they have a very wide consumer demographic with whole families drinking different varieties of their products.
Coca-Cola knows this, and accommodates for this wide audience in their advertising campaigns. This is most clear in their annual Christmas advertising campaign. This has been running for many years and always features families enjoying themselves, drinking Coke together and being happy. In recent times they have also started to feature common themes such as the trucks and the “holidays are coming” jingle. These adverts remind people of their long relationship with Coca-Cola, and the good memories they share with the holidays at that time, then link to the adverts. They have used the adverts to embed to product in social and family history, being a part of many family occasions, events and public holidays.
While they are a ”family” drink they have a broad advertising campaign, to reach out to many people, in which they promote their product through a wide range of social media and activities within the consumer market.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bL9tad0yhzY&feature=related
In this advert they have focused more on the sport side of the market looking at the history of goal celebrations, the advert gives a brief history focusing on the great celebration and happiness that had been captured after a goal has been scored, it then features then man who started it all happily enjoying the celebrations in the crowed surrounded by fans drinking a bottle of coca cola, it then cuts to the actually product advertisement showing a bottle of coca cola with the slogan enjoy happiness, which they have linked to the happiness of the advert, as event sponsors their corporate logo is visible at the venues, the advert is then made up of, edited highlights of goal celebrations showing their advertisement at national and international events that they are sponsors and supporters of.
Coca cola also has TV advertising that appeals to different demographics at certain times of the year, at Christmas they appear to concentrate on the family market where as is summer, the focus is more on the late teens early 20s, whilst there sporting sponsorship program appears to concentrate more on the 20 to 30s male attending football games. Other minor events throughout the year such as cycling events and there street football campaign as well as the healthy living campaign concentrate on other minor demographics through direct sponsorship or paid advertising.
The coca cola logo its self is not only just the actually writing of coca cola but also, the unique bottle shape, the red and white ribbon logo and the more common term “Coke” they have always stuck with the common colours of red and white for their main product and then have incorporated it into their newer products such as coke zero and diet coke, these colours are easily recognised by their target market and therefore make it a recognisable and bold brand. Transcend language, and even alternate alphabets – Arabic etc.
This is best proven in this Pepsi advert where they know there target market will recognise the brand of coke by the colour and style of the “plain red and white” can that has been placed next to their Pepsi can, therefore creating a clever market campaign where they can in a way mock, and poke fun at coke making their product seem better without having to pay royalties or actually adverting the competitors products. Other companies also use the type of advertising in which they use the fact they know there target market will recognise certain styles and colours that look similar to sway the market to make their product seem better without actually naming there competitor, as with the Pepsi advert
Pepsi, while having a fundamentally similar product to Coca-Cola, do not target as much of the market as Coca-cola do. They use their adverts to specifically target there audience in the 13-24 age range with a secondary market looking towards consumers in their late 20’s and 30’s focusing more on their future market and products while Coca-cola uses their nostalgia and historical influences. This means that Pepsi try to present themselves as being a more modern youthful drink aimed mainly at young males, this is most clearly shown in their adverts for Pepsi-Max where a bunch of young guys are helping each other out or having fun with inventions they have made. They are light-hearted and slightly comical with the focus being that your friends “Pepsi” will be there for you and always have your back. They use stylish and slightly comical advertising to appeal to the younger generation.
The Pepsi logo like coca cola is very simple it consists of only 3 colours, its design hasn’t changed a lot since the start and so is very easily a recognisable brand, just like coca cola. One example of this is CM Punk a WWE wrestler who supposedly for a joke got a Pepsi style logo tattooed on his shoulder because his friends were getting beer logos, although some believe this was a marketing campaign by Pepsi to reach one of their target audiences because he has on a few occasions spoken about a diet soda as well as using a similar style logo in his entrance videos and on his “Gear” that he wears entering the ring. When asked about it he also referenced it to former Minor Threat guitarist Brian Baker, who had a Coca-Cola logo tattooed on himself, because “he liked coca cola” perhaps making fun of him or just using it as a cover for the Pepsi marketing campaign.
Pepsi like coca cola sponsor a lot of different sports and events too. They sponsor football events such as the World Cup and basketball, but because of the large dominance of coca cola who sponsor a lot of major events they seem to sponsor other events that are not as well known as well as focusing more on advertising campaigns on the streets and TV then at sporting events.
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