Chapter 10: Product Concepts.

The Coca-Cola Company has made over 3,500 products available in over 200 countries. Their products vary from coffees, energy drinks, and juices and juice drinks to soft drinks, sport drinks, water, and teas. The Coca-Cola products are a consumer's product because they are "bought to satisfy an individual's personal wants". 
             
There are over 800 low and no calorie beverages. The coffees are caffeinated, decaffeinated, brewed, roasted, iced, flavored, or instant. The energy drinks contain caffeine or taurine and herbal flavors such as ginseng and vitamins and minerals. The juice and juice drinks are pulp free, not from concentrate, from concentrate, frozen concentrate, and flavored juice blends. The soft drinks come in regular, low calorie, no calorie, caffeinated, and caffeine free drinks. There's green tea, herbal teas, caffeinated and decaffeinated teas, and iced teas. The waters sold are bottled water, tap water, spring water, sparkling bottled water, and tonic water. 
                            
The labels on the beverages provide the amount of energy, protein, carbohydrate, fat, total sugars, and sodium. The Coca-Cola Company provides nutrition information at a site called Nutrition Connection. It tells you the amount of energy which is the balance between calories in and calories expended. There's also information about bone and dental health, hydration, low calorie sweeteners and caffeine and also tips for including physical activity in your daily routine.
                          

Chapter 18: Sales Promotion and Personal Selling.

The Coca-Cola Company has been using sales promotion tools since 1887, a year after the beverage was first made. Coupons were distributed to introduce the people to the new drink and to encourage them to try one free glass. Till this day, coupons are being used on a daily basis globally. You can get a dollar off your purchase or buy a certain amount of Coca-Cola and get a certain amount free. 

     

As of 2009, the company has created a touchscreen soda fountain called Coca-Cola Freestyle. The machine is called Coca-Cola Freestyle because you can mix whichever drinks you want to satisfy your taste. It has 125 drink choices to choose from and new flavors such as Raspberry Diet Coke and Fanta Grape. So far, the machine is only located in select cities such as Dallas, Chicago, Salt Lake City, Atlanta, and a few more in the west, south, and east regions. You can win VIP tickets to the 2011 FIS Freestyle World Ski Championships and the 2012 FIS World Cup in Park City, Utah thanks to Coca-Cola Freestyle. 

The Coca-Cola Company awards its consumers by recognizing those who take part in community activities such as recycling and water stewardship. On June 9,2011, the company awarded $27 million to 65 organizations in the United States for helping the environment. In March of 2011, there was a scholarship for $100,000 called Sprite Step Off, which encouraged college students to express themselves through step. These are only a couple of the hundreds of awards and giveaways by the Coca-Cola Company which makes sure that while the people are consuming its products, they are also being given an extra treat.

       

Chapter 17: Advertising And Public Relations.

As the years passed by from 1886 to now, Coca-Cola has impacted the lives of people all around the world. They learned about the company and its products from its first newspaper ad in 1886 in The Atlantic Journal, where it persuaded people to try "the new and popular soda fountain drink." Sales increased from 3-4 drinks sold a day, to nine drinks sold per day. 
        
As of 2009, Coca-Cola had become the world's #6 advertiser by spending an estimated $2.44 billion for global advertising. They "expense production costs of print, radio, internet and television advertisements as of the first date the advertisements take place. Advertising expenses including in selling, administrative, and general expenses were approximately: 
2006: $2.6 billion
2005: $2.5 billion
2004: $2.2 billion
2003: $1.8 billion
2002: $1.7 billion
2001: $2.0 billion
2000: $1.7 billion
1999: $1.7 billion
1998: $1.6 billion
1997: $1.6 billion
1996: $1.4 billion
1995: $1.3 billion
1994: $1.1 billion
                                   (1950s)

(2011)

Starting in 1931, the Coca-Cola Company started using Santa Claus in their magazine ads, which was created by artist Haddon Sundblom. The company wanted to show people that Coca-Cola wasn't only meant to be drank in the warm weather, but at any time and any season, so they came up with the slogan "Thirst Knows No Season" in 1922. Even though Santa Claus first appeared in The Saturday Evening Post, it also became popular in Ladies Home Journal, National Geographic, The New Yorker, and many other magazines.
        
Coca-Cola first started using the polar bear for advertising in France in 1922. A commercial called "Northern Lights" made the animated polar bear one of Coca-Cola's most popular advertising symbols. 

Chapter 15: Retailing (My Experience)

 For my retailing experience, I  went to Rite Aid in Richmond Hill, Queens. When I stood in front of the beverage section, I was honestly surprised by the vast amount of Coca-Cola products. They had 20 oz bottles, 1 liter bottles, 2 liter bottles, and 12 cans in the 12 oz packs. 

The drinks ranged from Coca-Cola Classic to Sprite to Fanta and to Minute Maid. There was also Coca-Cola Zero, Coca-Cola Cherry Zero, Diet Coke, Ginger Ale, and Dr.Pepper. The 20 oz bottles were $1.69, except for Sunkist, which was $1.59, the 1 liter bottles were $1.89 and the 2 liter bottles were $1.99. As I took note of the beverages and the prices, I noticed that there were hardly any Coca-Cola Classic and Diet Coke left after a full day of work and that the competition, Pepsi products, were all stacked right next to the Coca-Cola products.

Chapter 15: Retailing

  

The Coca-Cola Company is an independent retailer. This means that the "retailers are owned by a single person or partnership and not operated as part of a larger retail institution." The company has relationships with three types of bottlers: "independently owned bottlers where the company has no ownership interest; bottlers where the company has invested but has non-controlling ownership interest; and bottlers where the company has invested and has a controlling interest."

                         

Most of Coca-Cola's products are produced and distributed by bottling companies that aren't owned by the Coca-Cola Company. There are stores that don't only sell the Coca-Cola products but also merchandise, apparel, and accessories. The Coca-Cola Store in Atlanta, Georgia, lets you have a behind the scenes view of the bottling process, meet the Coca-Cola panda, and sample over 60 products from around the world. There's also a store in China (http://www.coca-colastore.com/), New York (http://www.coca-cola.com/en/index.html), and many other states and countries. 

  

Coca-Cola products are basically sold in department stores, supermarkets, drugstores, convenience stores, supercenters, restaurants, and automatic vending. They're either packaged in cans or bottles in a box or in a fridge or in the food section in the store in liter bottles, regular sized bottles, regular cans, or even the small cans.

    

Chapter 6: Consumer Decision Making

With three times the number of beverages offered 10 years ago, the Coca-Cola Company has more than 3,300 beverages with more than 800 low and no calorie beverages. Consumers are offered a beverage for every lifestyle and occasion, ranging from juices and juice drinks, water, sports and energy drinks, teas, coffee, dairy and soy based beverages, and full, reduced, low, and no calorie sparkling and still beverages. 

Consumers are making their purchases based on the health, nutrition, and the well being of their families. They also base it on the great taste and quality of the products and the character of the company. "People want to interact with brands and companies that share their values and are doing their part to protect and enhance people's lives, communities and the world."

The following link, Benefiting the Consumers, tells you about "Quenching Consumers' Thirst, Innovating To Foster Active Healthy Living, Product Safety and Quality Consumers Can Trust, and Communicating Sweeterner Safety." The Consumers purchase the coca-cola products because the company delivers the needs and expectations of the customers. For example, there's a demand for low or no calorie sweeterners so the Coca-Cola Company's investing in research and working to educate the consumers about the sweeterners used in the products. 

Coca-Cola is not just another drink that people buy because they want to drink it, but because they need to. On April 23rd, 1985, the Coca-Cola Company changed its formula for the first time in 99 years and referred to it as "New Coke". This caused such an uproar that consumers filled their basements with cases of Coca-Cola and one man even bought $1,000 worth of Coca-Cola from a local bottler. There were protests all over the country and people wrote songs to honor the original coke. The original formula was bought back a few months later on July 11, 1985.