Insights and Segmentation
The Coca-Cola Company is engaged in the production and sale of beverages, and therefore the new product will fall into this category. Unlike its competitors PepsiCo, the company is not diversifying into snacks and food (Jallow, 2021). Carbonated and non-carbonated drinks juice products best represent the company, and therefore diversification is expected towards coffee and dairy products. First of all, therefore, it is necessary to use the following three types of primary research: focus group interviews, questionnaires, and finally, an experiment with the provision of a product on exclusive terms to restaurants or stores with a preliminary sales estimate. These methods are the most effective, as they give a deep understanding of the need for a similar product at the first stage, the possible demand for a wider audience is tested at the second stage, and at the third stage, the quality of the product is already assessed before mass production. Ethical implications may exist for the first two types of research, so agreements for processing human-provided data should be included in the preliminary activities.
Coffee and the most famous drinks of the company are often referred to as harmful drinks. In this regard, it is necessary to develop an ecological and healthy product with regular and familiar coffee or milk flavors. This product will interest a broad audience (Borah & Dutta, 2019). The target customer, in this case, is a person who values their health and, at the same time, prefers coffee. The product’s value proposition meets the modern requirements of environmental responsibility and usefulness with all the known tastes of coffee.
- The product is a healthy coffee and milk drink;
- Primary research: focus group interviews, general audience survey, spot experiment with product presentation;
- Value proposition: usefulness, environmental friendliness, taste.
Product Strategy
Considering sustainability and usefulness as the core values of this product, the entire life cycle, including packaging, should have a similar direction. Packaging must be recyclable, and consumers must know exactly where to donate it. For example, this event can be carried out by placing a QR code on a label containing information about collection points. Production should be accompanied by appropriate control, and the first time the presentation of the product to the general consumer – by appropriate promotions in stores and restaurants. The product must be of the highest quality, and therefore it belongs to the premium category, which can significantly increase the company’s gross profit ratio in this sector (Guo & Wen, 2021). The differential influence of the Coca-Cola Company brand over competitors lies in the usefulness and use of ecology in marketing moves: information about the product life cycle will be fully available to every buyer.
Ethical implications, as a consequence, are presented as a strength of the product. Environmental and social responsibility will be fully satisfied with the highest quality of the product and its environment, right up to disposal. Therefore, product positioning can be described as follows. Firstly, the target segment is people who prefer coffee, care about their health, and support environmental responsibility. Secondly, people in this segment value quality over price, which will make this product a premium class. The unmet need of the segment is the lack of healthy, tasty, and healthy coffee drinks in the general market from trusted companies. The product concept, as a result, includes all the qualities mentioned above that distinguish the target audience: environmentally friendly packaging with the possibility of helpful disposal; high-quality production materials; rich taste, and no harm to health. The points of differentiation lie in the brand’s strength: Coca-Cola exclusively produces beverages without diversifying into other products, snacks, and food. Therefore, this company leads the market and is the brand that can be trusted when choosing drinks.
- Recycling of packaging, convenient disposal, QR code indicating the location of the collection point on the packaging;
- The highest quality product – premium class;
- Target segment: people who prefer the taste of coffee, care about health and value quality;
- Unmet need: lack of tasty and healthy drinks based on or flavored with coffee;
- Points of differentiation: brand strength, quality credibility, market leadership.
References
Borah, H., & Dutta, U. (2019). Trends in beverage packaging. Trends in Beverage Packaging, 1-19. Web.
Guo, X., & Wen, M. (2021). Research on Competitive Strategy of Coca-Cola Company. In 2021 3rd International Conference on Economic Management and Cultural Industry (ICEMCI 2021) (pp. 2879-2885). Atlantis Press. Web.
Jallow, D. (2021). A Strategic Case Study on PepsiCo. Available at SSRN 3828353. Web.