Background
For over a century, Coca-Cola and Pepsi- Cola vied for “throat share” of the world’s beverage market. In a “ carefully-waged competitive struggle”, from 1975 to 1995, both Coke and Pepsi achieved annual growth of around 10%; this was largely attributed to the effectiveness of their marketing efforts. Analyzing the environment and understanding the market
Instead of engaging in a “head-on confrontation” and getting involved in the largely dreaded price wars that promise to inflict much impact on the financials of both parties, both companies would always select customers that it can serve well and profitably.

For instance, Pepsi “[is] going after the younger consumer… where the profits are”. This is an illustration of concentrated marketing, which has been Pepsi’s strategy since 1970s. It allowed Pepsi to gain a better foothold against Coca-Cola, the market giant, and eventually grew into a stronger competitor. Till now, Pepsi still practices demographic segmentation where it divides the market into smaller groups of customers in accordance to their age. They then targeted the niche group, youths or Generation X, whom Pepsi has always believe that it is the group with better segment structural attractiveness. Teenagers have distinct and unique behaviors such as “purchasing a single-serve product at a convenience store like 7-11”, thus when Pepsi offers such convenience services, it has created a loyal base of young customer who are the largest consumer market for soft drinks.

On the other hand, Coca-Cola has its own strategies to defend this strong rival. Coca-Cola has always been active in international marketing thus being way ahead of Pepsi in many countries outside US in establishing the brand. By geographical segmentation, Coca-Cola targeted countries such as Brazil and China where there is a growing teen population and hot weather, which