22

Market ing Mix

Marketing Mix is the set of marketing tools that the firm uses to pursue its marketing objectives. Marketing mix has a classification for these marketing tools. These marketing are classified and called as the Four Ps i.e. Product, Price, Place and Promotion. The most basic marketing tool is product which includes product d e s i g n , q u a l i t y, f e a t u r e s , b r a n d i n g , a n d p a c k a g i n g . A critical marketing tool is price i.e. the amount of money that customers pay for the product. It also includes discounts, allowances, credit terms and payment period. Place is another key marketing mix tool. And it includes various activities the company undertakes to make the product accessible and available to the customer. Some factors that decide the place are transport facilities, channels of distribution, coverage area, etc. Promotion is the fourth marketing mix tool which includes all the activities that the company undertakes to communicate and promote its product to target market. Promotion includes sales promotion, advertising, sales force, public relations, direct marketing, etc.

Product
In marketing, a product is anything that can be offered to a market that might satisfy a want or need. It is of two types: Tangible ( p h y s i c a l ) a n d I n t a n g i b l e ( n o n - p h ys i c a l ) . S i n c e s e r v i c e s h a v e b e e n at the forefront of all modern marketing strategies, some intangibility has become essential part of marketing offers. It is therefore the complete bundle of benefits or satisfactions that bu ye rs perceive they will obtain if the y purchase the product. It is t h e s u m o f a l l p h y s i c a l , p s yc h o l o g i c a l , s ym b o l i c , a n d s e r v i c e a t t r i b u t e s , n o t j u s t t h e p h ys i c a l m e r c h a n d i s e . A l l p r o d u c t s o f f e r e d i n a market can be placed between Tangible (Pure Product) and Intangible (Pure Service) spectrum. A p r o d u c t i s s i m i l a r t o g o o d s . I n a c c o u n t i n g , g o o d s a r e p h ys i c a l objects that are available in the marketplace. This differentiates them from a service, which is a non-material product. The term goods is used primarily by those that wish to abstract from the details of a given product. As such it is useful in accounting and economic models. The term product is used primarily by those that wish to examine the details and richness of a specific market offering. As such it is useful to marketers, managers, and quality control specialists.

23 A service is a non-material or intangible product - such as p r o f e s s i o n a l c o n s u l t a n c y, s e r v i n g , o r a n e n t e r t a i n m e n t e x p e r i e n c e .

Coke - Product
The Coca-Cola formula is The Coca-Cola Company's secret recipe for Coca-Cola. As a publicity marketing strategy started by Robert W. Woodruff, the company presents the formula as one of the most closely held trade secrets ever and only a few employees know or have access to. This Coca-Cola formula appears to be the original formula to Coca-Cola. It is from the book For God, Country and Coca-Cola.

The company Coca-cola is a multinational and it is not limited to o n e p r o d u c t . T h r o u g h t h e ye a r s t h e y h a v e i n v e n t e d a n d i n t r o d u c e d many products than their main cola drinks. The list of Coca-cola brands are as follows:

24 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. Appletiser Aquarius BPM Energy Barq's Beat soda Beverly Cannings Cheers Ciel Coca-Cola Black Cherry Vanilla Coca-Cola Blak Coca-Cola C2 Coca-Cola Cherry Coca-Cola Citra Coca-Cola M5 Coca-Cola Zero Coca-Cola Coca-Cola with Lemon Coca-Cola with Lime Dasani Delaware Punch Diet Coke Fanta Fanta Citrus Fioravanti Fresca Frisco Fruitopia Frutonic Full Throttle Georgia Hi-C Hit Kia-Ora Kinley 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. Lemon & Paeroa Lift Lift plus Lilt Manzana Lift Mare Rosso Mello Yello Mezzo Mix Minute Maid Nestea New Coke Nordic Mist OK Soda Pibb Xtra Powerade Qoo Raspberry Coke Relentless Sarsi Senzao Simply Orange Smart Sparkle Sprite Sprite Ice Sprite Remix Sprite Zero Surge Swerve Tab Tab Clear Tab Energy Tab X-Tra Tiky Vault

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Pepsi - Product
The Pepsi-Cola drink contains basic ingredients found in most other similar drinks including carbonated water, high fructose corn syrup, sugar, colorings, phosphoric acid, caffeine, citric acid and natural flavors. The caffeine free Pepsi-Cola contains the same ingredients but no caffeine. Some of the different and varied brands of Pepsi are as follows: 1. All Sport 2. Aquafina 3. Caffeine-Free Pepsi 4. Crystal Pepsi 5. Diet Pepsi 6. Gatorade 7. Izze 8. Jazz 9. Josta 10. Kas 11. Manzanita Sol 12. Mirinda 13. Mountain Dew 14. Mountain Dew AMP 15. Mountain Dew LiveWire 16. Mountain Dew MDX 17. Mug Root Beer 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. Pepsi Pepsi Blue Pepsi Cappuccino Pepsi Max Pepsi ONE Pepsi Samba Pepsi Tarik Pepsi Twist Propel Fitness Water Sierra Mist Slice SoBe Storm Teem Tropicana Products Tropicana Twister

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Coke v/s Pepsi-Product

As seen above both the companies Coke and Pepsi have a number of products. Many of these products are innovations but there are also many products which are brought out just as a competitive product for the other companies. Some of these products that are brought in the market by both the companies to compete against each other are as follows:

Coke

Pepsi

The main dark cola drink of the company which started the rivalry between these companies.

Pepsi version of dark cola which is the major primary competitor to Coke.

Full Throttle is an energy drink brand produced by The CocaCola Company. It debuted in late 2004 in North America.

AMP is an energy drink produced and distributed by PepsiCo under the Mountain Dew soft drink brand.

Vault is a carbonated beverage that was released by The CocaCola Company in June 2005.

Mountain Dew MDX is an energy drink manufactured and distributed by PepsiCo under the Mountain Dew brand. It was introduced in 2005.

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Powerade is a sports drink by The Coca-Cola Company and currently number two in the sports drink market worldwide.

Gatorade is a non-carbonated sports drink marketed by Quaker Oats Company, a division of PepsiCo. Originally made for athletes, it is now often consumed as a snack beverage.

Sprite is a clear, lemon-lime flavored, non-caffeinated soft drink, produced by the Coca-Cola Company. It was introduced to the United States in 1961.

7 Up is a brand of a lemon-lime flavored soft drink.

Minute Maid is a product line of beverages, usually associated with orange juice, but now extends to soft drinks of many kinds. The Minute Maid company is now owned by Coca-Cola, and is the world's largest marketer of fruit juices and drinks. It is headquartered in Houston, Texas.

Tropicana Products is an American company based in Bradenton, Florida, USA, which is one of the world's largest producers and marketers of orange juice. It has been owned by PepsiCo, Inc. since 1998.

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Nestea is a brand of iced tea manufactured and distributed by the Nestle company's beverage department in the United States, and by Coca-Cola in several European countries, Brazil and Venezuela.

Lipton Original Iced Tea is a r e a d y- t o - d r i n k i c e d t e a b r a n d sold by Lipton through a worldwide partnership with Pepsi.

Barq's is a brand of root beer notable for being the only major North American root beer to contain caffeine. It has been bottled since the start of the 20th century and is currently sold by the Coca-Cola Company.

Mug Root Beer is a brand name of root beer made by the Pepsi company.

Diet Coke or Diet Coca-Cola is a Diet Pepsi is a low-calorie sugar-free soft drink produced carbonated cola. It was and distributed by The Coca-Cola introduced in 1964 as a variant of Company. It was introduced in Pepsi-Cola with no sugar. the United States in July 1982.

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Kinley is a brand of still or carbonated water owned by The C o c a - C o l a C o m p a n y.

Aquafina is a non-carbonated bottled water produced by PepsiCo.

Aquarius is a mineral sports drink manufactured by The CocaC o l a C o m p a n y. I t w a s f i r s t introduced in 1983.

All Sport was a sports drink. It is produced by PepsiCo.

Fanta is a soft drink brand owned b y T h e C o c a - C o l a C o m p a n y. I t i s produced and distributed by The C o c a - C o l a C o m p a n y' s b o t t l e r s .

Mirinda is a brand of soft drink. Mirinda is owned by PepsiCo.

Sprite Ice was the first flavor extension for The Coca-Cola Company's Sprite brand soft drink.

Pepsi Blue is a soft drink made by PepsiCo and launched in mid-2002.

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Coca-Cola Blak is a coffeeflavoured soft drink introduced by Coca-Cola in 2006.

Pepsi Cappuccino is a cappuccino-flavored carbonated soft drink produced by Pepsico.

Maaza is a Coca-Cola fruit drink brand marketed in India and Bangladesh.

Slice is a line of fruit-flavored soft drinks manufactured by PepsiCo and introduced in 1984.

Limca is a lemon and lime flavoured carbonated soft drink made in India by Coca-cola.

Teem was a lemon-lime-flavored soft drink produced by The Pepsi-Cola Company.

Price
In economics and business, the price is the assigned numerical monetary value of a good, service or asset. Price is also central to marketing where it is one of the four variables in the marketing mix that business people use to develop a marketing plan. Pricing is a big part of the marketing mix. Choosing the right price and the right pricing strategy is crucial to the marketing process. The price of the product is not something that is fixed. On the other hand the price of the product depends on many other factors. Some times the price of the product has got nothing to do with the actual product itself. The price may act as a way to attract target customers.

31 The price of the product is decided keeping many things in mind. These things include factors like cost incurred on the product, target m a r k e t , c o m p e t i t o r s , c o n s u m e r b u yi n g c a p a c i t y e t c .

Coke - Price
Coke was a company ruling the markets before Pepsi entered. Earlier the price of coke was cost based i.e. it was decided on the cost which was spent on making the product plus the profit and other expenses. But after the emergence of other companies especially the likes of Pepsi, Coca-cola started with a pricing strategy based on the b a s i s o f c o m p e t i t i o n . N o w a d a ys m o r e e x p e n s e s a r e s p e n t o n advertising my soft-drink companies rather than on manufacturing. Coke has brought in a revolution especially in Indian markets with the Rs. 5 pricing strategy which was very famous. It was the first company to introduce the small bottle of Coke for just Re.5. This campaign was very successful especially with the price conscious Indian consumers. Even today most prices of Coke are decided on the basis of the competition in the market.

Pepsi Price
Pepsi again decides it price on the basis of competition. The best think about the company Pepsi is that it is very flexible and it can c o m e d o w n w i t h t h e p r i c e v e r y q u i c k l y. T h e c o m p a n y i s r e n o w n e d t o bring the price down even up to half if needed. But this risk taking attitude has also earned Pepsi losses. Though lowering the price would attract the customers but it would not help them cover up the cost incurred in production hence causing them losses. This was the situation earlier but now Pepsi is a full-fledged and growing company. It has covered all its losses and is now growing at a rapid rate.

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Place
Place is a term that has a variety of meanings in a dictionary sense, but which is principally used in a geographic sense as a noun to denote location, though in a sense of a location identified with that which is located there. In marketing, place refers to one of the 4 P's, defined as "the market p l a c e " . I t c a n m e a n a g e o g r a p h i c l o c a t i o n , a n i n d u s t r y, a g r o u p o f people (a segment) to whom a company wants to sell its products or s e r v i c e s , s u c h a s yo u n g p r o f e s s i o n a l w o m e n ( e . g . f o r s e l l i n g cosmetics) or middle-aged family men (e.g. for selling family cars).

Coke - Place
Coke is a multinational company and it has its market around the entire world. This can be said just by the first page on its site which asks people to select the place of their choice. The website looks something like this:

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Pepsi Place
Pepsi again has spread worldwide. Pepsi when entering a new market does not go in alone but it looks for partners and mergers. Till now Pepsi has collaborated with companies like Quaker Oats, Frito-lays, Lipton, Starbucks, etc. Pepsi like Coke has spread all over the world. It is because of this worldwide spread that now it is coming up with Advertisements which can be broadcasted in the different nations in the world. The recent example with would be the Pepsi advertisements having David Beckham as it brand ambassador.

Promotion
Promotion is one of the four aspects of marketing. Promotion comprises four subcategories: 1. Advertising 2. Personal selling 3. Sales promotion 4. Publicity and public relations The specification of these four variables creates a promotional mix or promotional plan. A promotional mix specifies how much attention to pay to each of the four subcategories, and how much money to budget for each. A promotional plan can have a wide range of objectives, including: sales increases, new product acceptance, c r e a t i o n o f b r a n d e q u i t y, p o s i t i o n i n g , c o m p e t i t i v e r e t a l i a t i o n s , o r creation of a corporate image. Both the companies Pepsi and coke are famous for their promotions. The rivalry was first started when Pepsi started with its blind taste tests known as the Pepsi Challenge. The challenge is designed to be a direct response to critics who allege that Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola are identical drinks, with no meaningful differences. The challenge takes the form of a taste test. At malls, shopping centers and other public locations, a Pepsi representative sets up a table with two blank cups, one containing Pepsi and one with Coke. Shoppers are encouraged to taste both colas, and then select which drink they prefer. Then the representative reveals the two bottles so the taster can see whether they preferred Coke or Pepsi. If Pepsi is revealed, the shopper is given a small prize. The implication is that Pepsi tastes better than Coke, and thus consumers should purchase Pepsi.

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In blind taste tests, more consumers prefer the taste of Pepsi to that of Coca-Cola. Because Coke was the historical leader, more p e o p l e e x p e c t e d t h a t t h e y' d p r e f e r a n d s e l e c t C o k e . T h e i r s u r p r i s e a t picking Pepsi in the blind taste test (products were served in unmarked cups) helped change their minds about which product they prefer. Capturing this on film, Pepsi turned this into a memorable T V c a m p a i g n t h a t l a s t e d m a n y ye a r s . Also ad-campaigns are put up on the television by both the pla ye rs. The following statistic j ust tells of much of share of ads on T V a r e c a p t u r e d b y t h e s e p l a ye r s .

I n f a c t i n t h e n e x t g r a p h yo u c a n s e e h o w m a n y p r o g r a m s a r e sponsored by cola companies and the leader among them is Pepsi.

35 Mainly Pepsi is the company sponsoring most cricket telecasts happening in India and spends most of its revenue in that field.

Nowadays both Coke and Pepsi are going in for Brand Ambassadors to promote their product. These brand ambassadors are famous people who usually people idolize and people can relate to them. The following pictures do not need any explanation as people are familiar with the celebrities and can thus quickly identify with the product.

A list of Celebrities that are brand ambassadors for the cola companies are as follows. These celebrities are not only asked to

36 work in the advertisements but they also have to use the product promoted by them and they should not use the companies rivals proucts.