Let’s shed some light on the 10 Reasons Why Coca-Cola Still Dominates The Beverage
Market. From humble origins more than a century ago, it is now one of the most recognized
brands in the world.
The Famous Syrup
The story of Coca-Cola started after the American Civil War. John Pemberton was wounded and
developed an addiction to morphine, so he worked to develop a medicinal drink that could
replace morphine. After several formulations of varying success, Pemberton hit upon a syrup
made from sugar, coca plant extract, and kola nut extract. He brought his sweet syrup to
a fellow pharmacist in Atlanta, Georgia, named Willis Venable. Mr. Venable let Pemberton
use his pharmacy to test and perfect the recipe for his syrup. It was a happy accident that
caused him to mix his sweet syrup with carbonated water. Pemberton believed he had a winning
product on his hands and decided to sell his newly named Coca-Cola as a fountain drink
instead of as a medicine as he'd originally intended it to be. Unfortunately, Pemberton
fell ill shortly after these events. With his health failing, he sold the rights to
Coca-Cola in 1888.
Gone Global
Companies exist to sell their products to the public and make a lot of money, and well,
some of them are more successful than others. The Coca-Cola Company's measure of success
is that it sells almost 2 billion drinks a day under several hundred different brands
around the world. Unlike many companies that saw hard times during the pandemic, this global
soft drink company enjoyed a welcome 5% increase in revenues. Even though people couldn't go
to restaurants and other venues like ball games and concerts, they still had to shop
for their families while they were stuck at home. Apparently, many people still chose
to buy their favorite Coca-Cola products to help quench their thirst and help pass the
time. One of the keys to the soft drink company's success has been its ability to adapt so it
could continue to prosper. It dropped the Coca Plant from its recipe, developed a metal
can, formulated diet sodas, and expanded into sports drinks and even hard seltzer. Advertising
and marketing efforts have made the Coke name and logo a familiar part of pop culture. Most
customers will always identify the Coca-Cola Company with its signature cola, but it clearly
has successfully expanded its business to cater to peoples' changing tastes. This willingness
to change with the times so it can continue to expand has to be one of the reasons Coca-Cola
still dominates the beverage market.
Branding
For many people, Coca-Cola is almost synonymous with the carbonated beverage we all know as
cola. How did this particular soft drink become so embedded in our culture? Coca-Cola and
Pepsi have given up on the head-to-head taste tests because cola is cola. The success of
the Coca-Cola Company's brand isn't really built just on the merits of the products themselves.
Tastes are subjective, so the soft drink company decided to brand loyalty by making customers
feel good about buying and drinking Coke. Coke is all-American, it's what families drink
at ball games and barbecues and is the perfect drink at the movie theater. The company isn't
trying to convince people to drink Coke based on reason or objective arguments. Coca-Cola
has had success hooking its customers on a deeper, more emotional level. Coca-Cola wants
people to associate its products with feelings of nostalgia, good times, and family gatherings.
These are feelings that a blind taste test with a competitor can never reveal. According
to Coca-Cola, more than 19,000 of its products are enjoyed around the world every second
of every day. This kind of global success can't be attributed only to the products themselves.
A lot of energy and money has been used to craft an image of Coca-Cola that makes people
want to choose their products and feel good about doing it.
Can Of Steel
It is a little difficult to believe that there was actually a time before soda was available
in the common 12 oz. aluminum cans we're all familiar with. The Coca-Cola Company first
got the idea of putting its soft drink in a can back in the 1930s. However, the cans,
originally made from steel, remained prototypes and were never put into production. The traditional
glass bottles were a little delicate to be shipped overseas, and Coca-Cola intended to
expand into foreign markets. The glass bottles became an issue again in the 1950s when Coca-Cola
wanted to make its soft drink more available to the American troops stationed overseas.
The company decided cans were the answer, so it went to work on a steel can. The executives
at Coca-Cola were concerned that Coke's flavor would be harmed by the metal cans, but it
seemed to work out in the end. Initially, the cans of Coke were to be sold only overseas,
but then the company realized its can was a valuable innovation. In 1960, the can was
approved for domestic sale, and the soda can was born. The steel can was durable but expensive,
so by 1967, Coca-Cola started the switch to aluminum cans. It's easy to overlook, but
the innovation of the metal soda can is one of the reasons why Coca-Cola still dominates
the beverage market.
Marketing
The Coca-Cola Company has long realized that marketing efforts are an important part of
competing in the highly competitive soft drink business. Coca-Cola controls 44% of the carbonated
soft drink market, so it must be doing something right. It hasn't rested on its laurels though,
as it continues to push the usual television advertisements, merchandise, and billboards.
In 1971, Coca-Cola came out with one of the more famous and successful marketing campaigns
when it released a commercial that featured the song "Buy the World a Coke." The commercial
and the song were immediate hits for Coca-Cola, and different versions of it were played over
the years. The jingle was even turned into a successful pop song called "I'd Like to
Teach the World to Sing." More recently, the soft drink company used a lovable family of
animated Polar Bears. This campaign highlights Coca-Cola as a refreshing drink to be enjoyed
by the whole family. The labeling on the cans and bottles has undergone a number of changes
over the years, but the iconic red and white color scheme has remained pretty consistent.
These colors are very much associated with the soft drink brand, and it's hard to imagine
that would ever change. There have been variations, however, with Diet Coke having a silver can
and Coke Zero having a black can. All in all, attention to marketing is one of the reasons
why Coca-Cola is still one of the big players.
BODYARMOR
Soda sales peaked about 20 years ago, but the sports beverage called BODYARMOR is one
of the reasons why Coca-Cola still dominates the beverage market. This is a beverage similar
to products like Gatorade, which promises superior hydration and replenishment of the
electrolytes you need to stay in the game. The BODYARMOR brand boasts that it uses all-natural
flavors and sweeteners, and coconut water. The sports drink's attention to quality results
in a unique line of products that can compete in the crowded sports beverage market. BODYARMOR
has attracted a number of celebrities and sports stars to its health and fitness-minded
brands. The sports beverage line of drinks remains BODYARMOR'S signature product, but
it hasn't stood pat. Instead, it began branching out with a line of SportWater. This purified
water is full of electrolytes and promises all-day hydration for your workouts and activities.
As soda sales have declined, sports beverages and water have become a much bigger percentage
of Coca-Cola's sales, and this trend shows no signs of slowing down.
Beyond Plastic
Soft drink companies, including Coca-Cola, use a lot of aluminum cans and glass bottles
in order to sell their products. Plastic has been increasingly used instead of these other
materials, but Coca-Cola is trying to move beyond standard plastic bottles. An environmental
advocacy group released a report about the dangerous effects throwing away so many plastic
bottles into the trash could have. The report named Coca-Cola as the top plastic polluter
and went on to say that in one study, "13,834 branded Coca-Cola plastics were recorded in
51 countries." The Coca-Cola Company seems to have gotten the message that the huge amount
of plastic bottles it produces has been causing a problem. As a start, the soft drink manufacturer
committed to using bottles made from at least 50% recycled materials by the year 2030. Apparently,
Coca-Cola has no immediate plans to ditch plastic bottles entirely because it believes
its customers prefer them to other packaging. However, the company recently developed plastic
bottles that are made from plant matter. At first, the bottles could only be made with
about 30% plant matter. But, the technology has improved a lot over time, and Coca-Cola's
plastic bottles can now be made from 100% plant matter instead of traditional plastic.
The soft drink company's ability to use technology to innovate has helped it stay on top of its
game.
Coca-Seltzer
It seems like everyone is getting into the hard seltzer business these days, and Coca-Cola
is no exception. The soft drink giant had already been selling mineral water under its
popular Topo Chico brand, but in 2020, Coca-Cola decided it was the right time to drop some
of the products that were not selling well. However, on the positive side, it also agreed
that the Topo Chico brand was the right brand to use to expand into alcoholic drinks like
hard seltzer. Coca-Cola bought several wine businesses in 1978, but this initial foray
into alcoholic beverages didn't work as well as the company had hoped. All of the wine
businesses were sold off by the end of 1982. Coca-Cola moved their attention to Brazil
and Mexico, releasing the seltzers in 2020 while thirsty consumers in the United States
had to wait until 2021 to sample them. The beverage company saw its expansion into hard
seltzers as an experiment, but one worth pursuing because millennials have been driving an expansion
in the seltzer market over the last few years. Topo Chico Hard Seltzer is available in a
growing selection of refreshing flavors that includes Strawberry Guava, Tangy Lemon Lime,
Exotic Pineapple, and Tropical Mango. Any of these seem like a good choice for a lazy
afternoon by the pool. The willingness to expand into the alcoholic beverage market
is one reason why Coca-Cola still dominates the beverage market.
Market Infiltration
The Coca-Cola Company opened its first international bottler in Panama in 1906, meaning the company
has more than a century of experience on how to gain a foothold in beverage markets around
the world. In the late 1920s, Coca-Cola formed a subsidiary company that later became known
as the Coca-Cola Export Corporation. One of this corporation's first successes was to
form a partnership with the Olympic Games. The 1928 Summer Olympic Games took place in
Amsterdam, Netherlands and the company paid to ferry the American team across the Atlantic
Ocean in a chartered ship along with 1,000 cases of Coke. This is an early example of
the company's successful efforts to expand its profile and its sales into growing markets.
The Coca-Cola Company has developed partnerships with as many as 250 bottlers around the world
to get its drinks to as many customers as possible. These long-term relationships with
local businesses have helped give the soft drink global reach without having to go to
the expense of building its own bottling plants wherever it wants to sell its products. Coca-Cola
has focused on selling its proprietary syrups and concentrates to the bottlers. The bottlers
are left to make the drinks and package them for sale in their local areas. This market
strategy has proved to be cost-effective and very successful.
Coffee
Internationally successful coffee companies like Starbucks have shown Coca-Cola that people
will pay good money to get their morning caffeine fix at a coffee shop. So, it only makes sense
for a beverage company selling billions of dollars worth of caffeinated soft drinks to
get into the coffee business. Costa Coffee has been around for 50 years and is one of
the United Kingdom's most popular brands of coffee. The success of Costa Coffee caught
the attention of the Coca-Cola Company, and in 2018, the soft drink maker bought the coffee
shop chain from the parent company Whitbread for $5.1 billion dollars. This was considered
a bargain at the time, and with this purchase, the Coca-Cola Company acquired 4,000 stores
in 32 countries around the world. Until the company made this purchase, Coca-Cola didn't
have a product competing in the hot beverage market, which is one of the areas of the beverage
market continuing to show healthy growth. It seems like the soft drink company is willing
to take a chance on any beverage with the potential to make money.
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