Coming into my first marketing class I really had no idea what to expect. With marketing being a topic that I had never really been introduced to before in a academic way I did not know whether is was going to be something I enjoyed or strongly disliked; being extremely inartistic and having a very little amount of creative skills I was leaning towards strongly dislike – I could not have been more wrong.

After just the first class I new that marketing was going to be one of my favorite classes of the semester, if not the #1. In a small class environment it really allowed me to get everything out of the class that I wanted. The teaching style was perfect for my learning and it allowed me to understand everything. I was able to grasp a great understanding of how marketing really worked; how and why marketers attract the attention of the consumer, and why the consumer is susceptible to so many different forms of advertising.

From a student who plans on pursuing finance, marketing originally seemed like something I would just want to brush of and not really ever care about. However, my marketing class became something that I truly enjoyed – the in class activities, the open discussions, and the way the class was being taught. Looking back, my only regret is that I did not commit myself even more to the class.

From the course I was able to take away a very broad, but very important overview of marketing as a whole – something that I now plan on pursuing even further throughout university.

In their recent blog post, Pei Hsuan Huang talks about the consumers image of the brand Coca-Cola. They quickly explain how the average person, when thinking about the brand, generally only thinks about their mane product of Cola. With soda reaching the maturity stage in the product life cycle, Coca-Cola has had to find new ways to increase their sales. With health issues regarding soda constantly becoming more concerning, bottled water became a go-to product. I agree with Pei that Coke has done a successful job in attaining greater market share by entering not just the soda market, but also being a main competitor in the entire beverage market; not only soda and water, but tea, juice and energy drinks as well.

Just some of the many different products owned by the Coca-Cola brand.

Pei also explains how Coca-Cola is currently successful in marketing to countries outside of North America, namely Japan and Taiwan. By marketing to other places outside of Canada and the US it is showing their understanding that the markets in North America are very mature; by bringing their product to another area it allows them to enter a new market with an product they know has previously been extremely successful.

A can of Coke from Japan

Coca-Cola has been successful in creating a brand that a large percentage of consumers have become loyal to, but have also kept their prices low enough that their brand is still available to the new consumers to try their product without sacrificing a significant amount of money. This allows any one to try the drink – in the hope that they will become a loyal consumer – and also allows the already loyal consumers to continue to buy their product without financial concern.