While reading my COMM 296 classmates’ blog posts, I found a pretty interesting blog post mentioning how Coca Cola is changing their marketing strategy in order to satisfy consumer’s needs during the worldwide financial crisis. Dominic Sunga, blog writer, specifically talks about how people today try to spend as little as possible just to satisfy their own needs. Now, market competition is not that dependent on a brand’s recognition or popularity. Customers are now targeting to buy cheaper substitutes, putting a lot pressure to the high-priced popular brands in the market.
Coca Cola’s main strategy is to release smaller bottles in response to the consumer’s demand. They launched a 16 ounce bottle with a price around 99 cents, opening a smaller alternative to the traditional 20 ounce bottle that is priced around $1.50. Coca Cola believes that it will be a lot cheaper to produce smaller Coke bottles, hence selling their product at a more conformable price. Coca Cola’s marketing department also stated that consumers today are enticed to the idea of sustaining a fit/healthy life and saving money to face the financial crisis. With this new reduced sized Coke bottle, Coca Cola is successfully updating their production strategy to fit the consumer’s needs. Now, consumers are able to buy Coke bottles at a cheaper price and drink less Coke in order to stay in shape. Under these circumstances, Coca Cola is now able to be more competitive against their competitors in the “lower prices” market war.
Coca Cola, like many other brands today, is trying to open more alternatives so customers can have an easier time choosing what deal suits them better. Therefore, Coca Cola may be offering less Coke in these bottles but they’ll get more profit from them due to the current frugal economy.