Coca Cola

Coca-Cola is the brand which perhaps best exemplifies global marketing. It is enjoyed hundreds of millions of times a day by people all over the globe. It can be found almost anywhere in the world, from large cities to remote villages, across five continents. The Coca-Cola Company sells nearly half of all soft drinks consumed around the world. No other soft drinks company sells even half as much! The Coca-Cola Company has a number of important soft drinks brands, the best known of which are Coca-Cola, Diet Coke, Sprite, Fanta and Lilt. In Ireland, the Coca-Cola brand is the market leader in the carbonated soft drinks (CSD) market, with a market share of 25 per cent. Its next nearest competitor, 7-UP, has 17 per cent of the market and its nearest rival in the cola market, Pepsi, has 3 per cent market share. The Coca-Cola contour bottle is one of the brand’s key icons and is the symbol of the brand’s authenticity. It was developed in 1916 to create a distinct identity for the brand in consumers’ minds and to protect the brand from being imitated by competitors. Today it represents the very essence of the brand’s identity in the marketplace and remains instrumental in differentiating the brand from all other competing products. This business study describes the creation of the Coca-Cola contour bottle and how this contour bottle has become a central component of the consumer strategy for Coca- Cola. It exam in es h ow this Contourisation Strategy impacts on all aspects of the brand’s marketing mix. It describes the successful introduction of Coca-Cola into the Irish market and examines the reasons for the success of the more modern packaging format.

Thinking that ‘the two Cs would look well in advertising’, Dr Pemberton’s partner and bookkeeper, Frank M. Robinson, suggested the name and penned the now famous trademark ‘Coca-Cola’ in his unique script. The first newspaper advertisement for Coca-Cola soon appeared in The Atlanta Journal, inviting thirsty citizens to