Social Media Monitoring Project #2
At the beginning of October, I analyzed Coca-Cola's social media surveillance project and gave some analysis. This time, I will continue to monitor and analyze Coca-Cola’s social media strategy and express some of my views. To
The Coca-Cola Company is the world's largest beverage company, founded in Georgia, USA in 1892. Coca-Cola’s main competitor is Pepsi, but Coca-Cola is still even better in terms of market share.
Multi-segment positioning: The Coca-Cola Company has more than 500 non-alcoholic beverage brands, and the Coca-Cola Company’s beverages are now sold in more than 200 countries. Specifically, Coca-Cola's products meet the needs of a broad customer base.
Adaptive positioning: The Coca-Cola Company pays close attention to changes in the external market and meets growing customer expectations by regularly repositioning products and services according to changes in market segments.
Coca-Cola also launched activities on Facebook, "Cold take: Coca-Cola is best served chilled!" A large number of fans reposted and liked these activities.
Competitor: Pepsi
Coca-Cola and Pepsi are well-known brands in the soft drink industry, and both companies are among the Fortune 500. Companies with a wide range of product lines in a highly competitive market have fierce competition with each other, and continue to compete for market share in almost all vertical product markets that follow.
Social media is a key channel for the two brands to convey brand content to young and thirsty people.
The announcement days before the World Cup of BTS, a South Korean boy band, as Coca-Cola’s brand ambassador generated the biggest social media buzz of the year for the Atlanta-based company, with over 615,000 mentions. Meanwhile, South Korean boy band YDPP’s mash-up with Pepsi early 2018 and Cardi B’s Super Bowl 2019 ad generated massive social media impact for Pepsi.
On a worldwide level, Coca-Cola generated 12.2 million brand mentions and 117.2 million engagements over the last 12 months, while Pepsi generated 7.8 million brand mentions and 75.2 million engagements. This seems obvious as the World Cup and BTS speak to a larger audience than Pepsi’s brand activities.
From a US perspective：
In the US, Pepsi generated 4 million mentions and 39.8 million engagements over the last 12 months, compared to Coca-Cola’s 3.7 million mentions and 59.2 million engagements.
This shows that even with a lower level of single mentions, Coca-Cola generates more shares and likes with its marketing effort. Hence, the company’s strategy to invest both in an international sports event and a boy band creates more buzz in the States than the one-day-hit Super Bowl for Pepsi. It’s a tough game for Pepsi.
On both global and US levels, music celebrity endorsements were the key social media drivers for both brands, with more impact than any single mass event or product launch.
Both companies follow the same strategy, by hosting major sports events with massive impact on all generations of consumers and leveraging these events with K-Pop or rap musician endorsements to fuel Generation Z’s viral gluttony.
We can define both soda brands’ strategy as comparable and defensive, with a clear focus on the US for Pepsi, and an international approach for Coke. They both buy category exclusivity in the World Cup and the Super Bowl events, not only to convey a brand message to masses but apparently more for prestige reasons, to avoid that the despicable enemy takes over the castle.
Use Twitter data to analyze customer sentiment for Pepsi and Coca-Cola
(Source: https://blog.csdn.net/woshicver/article/details/114465434)
By downloading 5000 tweets from each company’s official Twitter to analyze the customer sentiment of these two companies, and in this analysis, we can understand how to analyze customer sentiment from the brand’s social media participation.
SWOT analysis of Coca-Cola:
Strengths-internal strategic factors
1. Strong brand identity: Coca-Cola is a very popular brand with a unique brand identity. Its soft drinks are the best-selling drinks in history. Its iconic logo, classic red and white color scheme, and world-famous advertising slogans resonate with consumers of all ages.
There are two key companies in the beverage industry, one is Coca-Cola and the other is still Pepsi. Despite this, Coca-Cola still maintains its top position as a clear winner. Although both Coca-Cola and Pepsi are constantly competing for expanded market share, Coca-Cola has an advantage in this regard.
2. A strong distribution network: Coca-Cola is sold in more than 200 countries, selling 1.9 billion products every day, and introducing more than 500 new products worldwide. Some of them are variants of Coca-Cola drinks, such as Coca-Cola Vanilla and Coca-Cola Cherry. As we all know, its brand influences every lifestyle and population around the world.
Coca-Cola's ability to utilize company-owned and controlled distributors and independent bottlers, wholesalers, and retailers is not the same. This system enables Coca-Cola to closely manage costs, quickly introduce new products to the market, and saturate various regional markets.
In addition, the Coca-Cola Company's distribution network has improved the quality control and safety level of its products. In recent years, a stable distribution platform has been a big benefit for expanding the market because the company has been seeking to reach new customers in remote areas. In the critical period, these different operations contribute to market share, quantity, delivery and product introduction.
3. Customer loyalty: The Coca-Cola Company has attracted a core group of followers, and many consumers generally do not turn to other brands after thinking that they are fans of its products.
Coca-Cola is considered one of the most emotionally connected brands in the United States. This valuable brand is associated with "happiness" and has strong customer loyalty. Customers can quickly recognize their unique tastes, and it is difficult to find alternatives. In addition, Coca-Cola and Fanta have a larger fan base than other beverage brands in the industry.
4. Overwhelming market share: Coca-Cola and Pepsi are the only two largest soft drink producers in the beverage industry, and Coca-Cola has the largest market share.
Weaknesses-internal strategic factors
1. Product diversity: Coca-Cola's products are less diversified. Pepsi has launched many snacks, while Coca-Cola lags behind in this market segment. This makes Pepsi more influential than Coca-Cola.
2. Water source management: Water source is the main ingredient of all the company's products. Water is essential for the agricultural ingredients on which cola is produced. In addition, water is necessary in Coca-Cola’s core manufacturing process. In addition, water is vital to the community market that Coca-Cola is involved in.
Opportunities-external strategic factors
1. Introduce new products and diversify its departments: Coca-Cola has the opportunity to launch new products in the health and food sectors like PepsiCo. This can increase revenue and diversify the business.
2. Introduce advanced supply chain system: Coca-Cola's business is highly dependent on logistics and supply chains. Transportation costs and fuel prices have been rising. Therefore, it may be an opportunity to propose an advanced and improved distribution system.
Threats-external strategic factors
1. Health problems: Carbonated drinks are one of the main sources of sugar intake. It causes two serious health problems-obesity and diabetes. Coca-Cola is the largest manufacturer of carbonated beverages. Many health experts have banned the use of these beverages. This is a controversial issue for the company.
2. Direct and indirect competition: Although Pepsi's direct competition is prominent in the market, there are also many other companies that compete indirectly with Coca-Cola. Starbucks, Coffee Family, Tropicana, Lipton Juice and Nescafe are indirect competitors of Coca-Cola, which may threaten its market position.
In conclusion
Although Coca-Cola faces many challenges, the company still has a bright future. Its overall size and financial resources enable it to make good use of valuable acquisition targets. Coca-Cola's huge distribution network should enable continued sales growth and success in emerging markets.
Hi, Haoran, I like your post very much, especially the pictures you selected, which really made me feel the feeling of Coca-Cola, gorgeous, unrestrained, energetic and young. I think your thinking is also very rigorous. You chose Pepsi, the old rival of Coca-Cola, and compared them under the American market and the world market at the same time.
ReplyDeleteIn the competition for market share, Coca-Cola should be better than Pepsi-Cola. You mentioned some activities on social media that call on the audience to participate in interaction, such as "hot days, cool cola" and "cola will taste better if it is chilled", which made me feel the affinity of this brand. A good brand will arouse the audience's enthusiasm for interaction. Different from the luxury brand I chose, it is not suitable for "putting down the value" to interact with the audiencein daily life, but Coca-Cola, a brand that accompanies people's life, is very suitable. .
Besides, you mentioned that Coca-Cola has not only its most popular Coke, but also many other things, which is obviously too "friendly" for me as a person who wants to keep in shape, which means that I can also become its audience to consume some products. Coca-cola also actively chooses some brands that are very close to its brand positioning for cooperation, such as Overwatch, which is also popular among young people. My favorite esports player, Sado, is its loyal customer. You said that consumers who consume Coca-Cola will continue to buy this brand of Coke instead of other brands because of their habits. I quite agree with this, because I watched all the competitions of Sado this year, and he always chose this brand of Coke instead of Pepsi or other brands of Coke. At the same time, because I like Sado, I can't help but agree with his favorite brand, so Coca-Cola has used two markets at the same time, one is its own, and the other is Overwatch, which it worked with before.
Therefore, it is the credit of social media to say that I became a consumer of Coca-Cola brand. Because of social media, I was able to watch the competition of Overwatch and like Sado. He virtually promoted Coca-Cola during the competition, which made me willing to accept and understand this brand. After that, Coca-Cola's performance on social media made me approve this brand.
Hi Haoran,
ReplyDeleteI loved how you discuss further about the concerns of Coca Cola's products health concerns along with their global positioning. This helped me identify further weaknesses of Pepsi and potentially how they can grow their presence better. I also loved how in sync and flowing Pepsi's content is where it is also takes on a community approach. Involved in different social justice issues and being able to stay neutral at the same thing which I believe Coca-Cola is able to do because of their brand loyalty. Your post is very comprehensive and provides great context surrounding Coca-Cola.
Great job!