Widely-recognized, Coca-Cola and Pepsi are the two most
popular beverage brands in the world. Within the lineup of beverages, their
well-known predominant beverages are Pepsi-Cola and Cola Classic, the carbonated
cola. Over the century, Coke and Pepsi have been at each other's throats in a
constant strive for a bigger piece of the billion-dollar soda market. Although
when compared in double blind taste tests, the majority of people could not
tell the difference in taste, people will swear they love one or the other.
According to Interbrand's annual report, Coca-Cola is a more
valuable brand than Pepsi. The reason is because brand image of Coca Cola is
more deeply-rooted than Pepsi's. Both drinks are no longer seen as a beverage
but primarily as a brand. Both companies oblige greatly to sponsoring outdoor
music festivals and are even charitable
By appealing to pop culture, Pepsi tries to target on the
younger generation. Their website is consisted flashy pages containing pop
music, cars, and fashion. Even though, Coca-Cola's website also has links for
music and sports, two arenas in which soda-pop is often consumed; but due to its
long history as the standard for cola beverages, Coca-Cola's is less flashy and
uses a classical appeal.
While Pepsi had Britney Spears, Keshauntae Brown, Michael
Jackson, and Mariah Carey, Coca-Cola had Christina Aguilera featured in their commercials.
Furthermore, while Pepsi with its younger audience tends to focus only on pop
stars, it was Coca-Cola who is regarded as having one of the greatest TV advertisements
of all time, featuring a far more mature pop band Blondie and the enormous hit
"Atomic", the video played the main chorus of the song to the
backdrop of professional footballers taking part in genuine competitive World
Cup games and the noise a contender for the coveted title of Greatest
Commercial of All Time in many nations.
Over the past several years, the brand at the top of the
list of Interbrand's annual report has been Coca-Cola. That's not surprising,
given the amount of effort and money the company put into creating their brand.
Surprisingly, spending just about as much money on branding
as Coke and sell just about as much product. Pepsi comes in as the 26th most
valuable brand in the world.
The important factors which indicated these circumstance is
the difference of their brand's essence.
In other words, the brand essence for Coca-Cola has to do
with things Americans hold close to their hearts, for example, people will
think of America, Santa Clause, Polar Bears, World War II, History, and Family
when they think of Coca Cola. Coca-Cola has a brand appeal that taps into some
of the most deeply-ingrained emotions.
And for Pepsi, their brand essence isn't as deeply-rooted as
Coca-Cola's. It's based on what's new, what's hot and what's trendy such as
Britney Spears, Michael Jackson, Youth, The Choice of a New Generation, Cool,
and Fun.
This happened because several decades ago, Pepsi decided to
focus on the youth market since adults' brand loyalty for Coca-Cola was too
well-entrenched to change their preferences. The company would like to spend
their time, money and energy appealing to a younger market who, eventually,
would replace the more mature Coke drinkers.
The problem was that by focusing on youth, Coca-Cola still
keeps the brand values it already had. And those brand values are things that
are deeply rooted in the American being. On the contrary, Pepsi has won abundantly
of battles and has been keeping The Coca-Cola Company on its toes for decades. What
Pepsi did with Gatorade, Aquafina and the non-carbonated beverage category are
some of the examples.
U.S. Consumption of carbonated soft drinks has steadily
declined in the past decade.
Part of that comes down to the range of other beverages the
market now offers. Part of it comes down to health concerns in a nation with an
obesity problem.
As a result, in the past few years, Pepsi comes up with
their new strategy which they are focus more on the health-concerned product
such as water, juices, teas and sports drinks.
Pepsi’s brands in those areas consist of Aquafina and
Gatorade. And while it traces in soft drink sales, it leads the world in
ready-to-drink teas through Lipton, though its Tropicana succeed in juices
nectars.
The company is betting huge on creating healthy foods over
its Quaker Oats, Gatorade and Tropicana divisions. And it just initiated the
Global Nutrition Group to bring breakthrough products.
And also, Pepsi try to hired several well-known nutritionists
to direct its efforts at reducing fat, sodium and sugar in its products.
In the meantime, Coca-Cola doesn’t seem to concern about
what Pepsi has established. The company not only remains to focus on selling
soft drinks worldwide, but even undertakes to rebuild Coke sales in the U.S.
market. And undoubtedly, there was only 2% fall in Coke’s beverage volume in
North America the year before. In 2009, it was tremendously tough economically
on top of a relatively cool summer. In contrast, Pepsi’s beverage volume in the
same region decreased 8%. While both brands have been declining, Pepsi is doing
so at a slightly quicker rate.
As far as Pepsi is concerned, the cola wars are over. It now
desires to focus on convincing investors that it has the right concentrate in
this new strategy.
At present, the Global Nutrition Group is little but a nice
marketing tool. It recently reduced the top end of its guidance for earnings
growth. This may be because of increased investment in nutrition or due to a challenging,
competitive global environment. Coke, among others, continues to giveaway
market share from Pepsi. However, Pepsi had not neglected the company’s core
business. Carbonated beverages still produce greatly of the company’s sales and
for now, they’re still key to Pepsi’s upcoming health.
yes soft drinks are good but My favorite drink is the Shunya herbal drink,
ReplyDeletealmost all of the product I have tried are very helthy.
If you’re not a fan of soft drink,
Herbal Cold Drink I definitely recommend trying Shunya Herbal Cold Drink!