Coca-Cola and Pepsi Co. have revealed some of their respective plans for global market dominance in 2016.
Coca-Cola has kicked off 2016 with a new global marketing campaign called “Taste that Feeling”. It is the beverage giant’s first global campaign covering Coke, Diet Coke, Coke Life and Coke Zero. The campaign aims to create a single Coke brand rather than individual marketing of Coke product options.
Chief Marketing Officer Marcos de Quinto calls it the “one brand” strategy in one of the biggest fundamental shifts in Coca-Cola history.
“We are going from a strategy of having multiple Coca-Cola brands with multiple personalities to one brand with different variants,” Quinto said.
“Our previous strategy of generating sub-brands has in some cases undermined the fundamental promise that Coca-Cola is for everybody,” he added.
The campaign launch comes at a time when Coca-Cola globally has been investing heavily in sugar alternatives due to increasing health concerns amongst the public. The best example of this is its latest beverage “Coke Life” which was launched in Australia in 2015. It is the first version of Coca-Cola to be made using a mixture of stevia and sugar and it has a lower calorie count (by 60 per cent) than traditional Coca-Cola.
Pepsi launches its first restaurant
Meanwhile, Coca-Cola’s arch rival Pepsi Co. is also steering a big new direction.
Pepsi made headlines this week by announcing it will be opening a restaurant in New York which will sell food and beverages using the Kola nut (the nut traditionally used to help make cola flavoured beverages). The Pepsi logo will only be used “subtly” throughout the restaurant.
Pepsi Co. performed well in 2015 however the food and beverage giant has drawn some analyst speculation that 2016 could be a different story.
Commentator Tamar Walsh writing online at Motley fool, said in 2016 Pepsi will need to keep fighting dropping soft drink consumption rates and could be impacted by foreign exchange rates with almost 50 per cent of the company’s net revenue is now sourced from outside the USA.
