Coca-Cola and Consumer Behavior

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Coca-Cola and Consumer Behavior

Introduction

This paper analyzes the consumer behavior of Coca Cola Company and studies its marketing implications. Consumer behavior refers to the study of processes, organizations, groups or individuals they use to dispose, secure and select of ideas, experiences, services and products in satisfy needs and assess the process impact on society and consumer. Coca-Cola recognized the importance of customer behavior study as it is vital in assessing the buying behavior of consumer, as the customer plays three dimensional roles of buyer, payer and user.



Company Background

Coca-Cola is the best-known brand and the world largest softy drinks marketer. Coke began as US product, and become a symbol of market economy. Coca-Cola has consumers in more than 200 countries and people across the world enjoy their beverages at a rate 1.8 billion per day. During last 20 years, Coca-Cola has always paid more and special attention to its US consumers. During 1982, Coke without careful analysis introduced Diet Coke. With the passage of time, they came to realize it become one of the most successful product. The company always comes up with appealing and interesting marketing strategy to increase customer satisfaction and gain customer loyalty.

Discussion

Q1#

Consumers who have strong beliefs and attitudes towards brand of Coca-Cola can exceed what the company may envisage to even attain the level of having highly self relevant and emotional to Coke; it became related with self-image and lifestyles of consumers. As, consumers need to be pleased, they become satisfied depend on their prior experience, the price, the promotions of firm, brand connotation and many others. All these are accessible for consumers of Coca Cola that creates more satisfaction among them, along with the level without which they cannot survive, as loyal consumers perceive Coke a part of their lives. Such beliefs and attitudes lead to protest against the company for their decision to replace the old Coke with new and different taste. Undoubtedly, there is a huge dissimilarity between loyal and less loyal customers towards the products of Coca-Cola. People who are less involved with their brands are indifferent when they announced that it will stop the production of their main brands, such customers are ready to try new brands or might switch to other competitors' product as they do not have any bond or association with the product or the company because they are ready to try any other beverage or soft drink in the absence of Coca-Cola (Narayan, 2010).

The implications of marketing that such differences have refer that the company has to find ways in reaching the customer who are less loyal. For any reason, there is a salient belief of consumers who are less involved with the company or are less loyal towards Coca-Cola, so the Coca-Cola Company should figure out ways to change their attitude and to change their attitude towards the product. Marketers should identify ways to alter and modify their strategies in improving their effectiveness. How... ever, there is also a need to sustain the loyal customers by offering different kinds of incentives for their loyalty or by coping up with their need in order to keep them satisfy.

Q2#

Brand loyalty can be defined as the state of affairs in which a consumer usually purchases the same product over and over again rather than purchasing from several suppliers within the category. In marketing, brand loyalty comprise of a commitment of consumer commitment purchase again or else carry on to use the same brand and may be showed by the repurchase of a service or product, or have a positive attitude like advocacy of the word of mouth.

It is not possible for consumers to be loyal to several brands that fall in the same line of product. For instance, a consumer can be loyal to more than one brand of beverages, but a consumer of Coca-Cola cannot be loyal to Pepsi, but can be loyal to juice products or Spirit or 7UP. Despite the fact that Sprit and 7UP are soft drinks but comes under “white” beverages, similar with the case of Slice (Perner, 2010).

There are several pros of having a number of brands in a category of product such as each and every sub-category of brand endorsed certain benefits and attributes that best fulfilled the target market's need; contained a common message of care and quality; monopolize the market; assist in establishing brand loyalty; as well as may assist in advertising mother brand. On the other hand, a lot of products may not make a huge revenue for the company, Coca-Cola must pay huge amount of money in the name of innovation; cannot compete to the big firms; and hard to administer all of the products.

While taking important decision, marketers must consider several factors that have a significant impact on their business. One of the essential factors is needs of consumers, rapid changing market environment. For instance, psychological reasons that motivate people to buy or not to purchase a product, as such factors help marketers in capitalizing on them. For instance, few consumers purchase under the influence of others, while others to satisfy themselves.

Q3#

Customer refers to a person who actually makes the decision to purchase a product; however, it is not necessary that he/ she directly consume a product or service, but the person who takes purchasing decision. For instance, if mother purchases beverages like Coke for her family members then she is a customer and not a consumer, while the whole family is considered to be consumers. There are two main types of customers, namely external customers and internal customers. External customers are those individuals who can be individuals, business people and groups outside the boundaries of organization; whereas, the internal customers refer to those customers who works within the boundaries of the organization. On the other hand, consumers are the ones who consume or drinks Coke or Coca-Cola products (Smith, et. al, 2008).

Consumers and customers have different salient beliefs regarding Coke products. Consumers typically inclines in gaining maximum product utility based on the restricted budget. Consumers attain salient beguiles regarding Coke because their cognitive system may merely hold a comparatively few facts in their mind, and these salient beliefs have a significant impact on purchase decision of consumers. The salient beliefs of consumers can be taste, experience, hygiene, ingredients the Coke contains. However, salient features of the customer are not alike consumer of Coke, the customer thinks and perceive about exterior features of the Coke such as accessibility, price, and affordability.

Marketers of Coke must adopt different strategies to grasp the attention of both consumers and customers. In order to gain the attention of consumers, Coke must espouse the psychological approach to target the emotion of the consumer. However, to gain and increase customer share they need to focus on marketing mix along with competitive marketing strategies that stress on price discounts, easy accessibility and product attributes.

Q4#

In the marketing industry, brand equity refers to a phrase that depicts the significance of having a renowned name of brand, depend on the notion that the proprietor of a renowned brand name may produce more revenue from Coke with that name of brand in compared from products with a less renowned brand name, as believed by consumers that a Coke with a renowned name is better as compared to products with less eminent brand names. Brand equity is also known as “brand value.”

The initial brand strategy of Coca-Cola revolved around three essential ideas such as acceptability, availability and affordability of their product. With the passage of time, the company moved their strategic approach in the direction of persuasive penetration, preference of customers and consumers, and price value. Brand equity of Coke is difficult to measure as it is solely depended on the consumer's belief and perception about the product. However, Coke continuously strives to meet the customer needs by focusing on innovation and product differentiation (Oskamp & Schultz, 2005).

Moreover, Coke in order to revitalize brand equity through contour bottle reintroduction across the world. Coke by this reintroduction of contour bottle revamps its brand equity because these days' customers and consumer both seek for convenience and this strategy turn out to be effectual in revive brand equality.

Q5#

Consumer attitudes and intentions are both an advantage and an obstacle to a marketer. Selecting to ignore or discount attitudes of consumers of a certain product, while formulating a marketing strategy make certain limited proliferation of choice alternative. On the other hand, insightful leverages of marketers their attitudes and intention understanding in predicting consumers' behavior. Consumer attitudes and intentions have a significant impact on the Coca-Cola's proliferation of choice alternative because the better understanding of consumers helps marketers of Coca-Cola in understanding the preferences of the consumer, so that they can formulate effective strategy to increase customer base and increase business profitability (Arora, 2007).

Conclusion

It can be apparently concluded that Coca-Cola employed effective strategy to address the customer need and improve brand equity. The company has acknowledged the fact that customer are the key to business success and profitability. Hence, they focus more on customer need and formulate strategies that increase brand value and customer satisfaction.

References

Arora, R. (2007). Message framing strategies for new and mature products. The Journal of Product and Brand Management, 16(6), 377. Retrieved on November 12, 2012, from http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=1628212&show=html.

Narayan, S. (2010). The perils of faking it. Retrieved November 11, 2012, from http://64.74.118.102/2010/02/04214927/The-perils-of-faking-it.html

Oskamp, S. & Schultz, W. (2005). Attitudes and opinions. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 25-110

Perner, L. (2010). Consumer behavior: the psychology of marketing. Retrieved November 12, 2012, from http://www.consumerpsychologist.com/

Smith, J., Terry, D., Manstead, A., Louis, W., Kotterman, D., & Wolfs, J. (2008). The Attitude-Behavior Relationship in Consumer Conduct: The Role of Norms, Past Behavior, and Self-Identity. The Journal of Social Psychology, 148(3), 311-33. Retrieved November 10, 2012, from http://www.academia.edu/708253/The_attitude_behavior_relationship_in_consumer_conduct_The_role_of_norms_past_behavior_and_self-identity.

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