Comparative Essay _ Coca Cola VS Pepsi

While there are a lot of soda companies out there not all of them are similar, especially there marketing strategies and how they make use of their websites. A couple of the mainstream companies are Coca-Cola and Pepsi. While some people will make a very strong case that they are vastly different in taste, this is especially true with their websites and the way they present themselves.
Let’s compare the Coca-Cola’s website with Pepsi’s website, the biggest different is the color. Coca-Cola uses red as their main color and Pepsi uses blue. On the first page of their website, Coca-Cola shows the 2015 official commercial “Big Game” linked with YouTube and on the right side of video, they display latest social media trends such as Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and YouTube. The upper left side is a “AHH” campaign, which is a collection of mini Flash games that the public creates. Coca-Cola stows away these games, in an archive, which can be found on their website. The lower part of website, there is “Live Positively” campaign logo with a link, which is about Coca-Cola’s corporative social responsibilities. The website also has a tab that directs its guests to Coca-Cola’s beverage collection page.
The first thing a guest will notice on Coca-Cola’s website is that the way the links are set up is extremely disorganized. They can make it look more professional, if they stop re-directing their links to different websites. For example, if someone were to click on “Coke in The USA” tab on the homepage, and decide to click on any of the links in the drop down menu, then the guest will quickly realize that a new tab opened up on their web browser, and that they are now on a different website. This sounds simple in theory, however a guest will end up with numerous tabs, which they will have to painstakingly exit out of and on top of that, they also will encounter that the main-page never re-directs, instead it opens a yet another new tab on their browser. If they were to get rid of this style on their website, then it de-clutter, and make it more interactive.
While the original website is messy, and confusing, on their first tap, the Coca-Cola Journey website is a digression from the original and actually does a good job of being informative. What this means is that, in this Journey site, Coca-Cola wants to showcase their contributions to society, and display their innovative ideas to the world at large. They also have a newsroom like page where they display all articles related to their products. The website is basically an online channel which reflects Coca-Cola’s achievements in journalism with topics regarding Sustainability, Innovation, and Brands. It looks less like a product advertisement, and more like an informative site, where the public can become more involved with the company by staying updated on their latest accomplishment.
In the Journey site, they have managed to compartmentalize their articles in a way that is really easy to recognize the targeted subjects, Geographic, Demographic and Psychographic segments. This is beneficial for their website because Coca-Cola has drinks that target different geographic elements such as specific age groups, ethnic groups, sexes and lifestyles. The Geographic segment consists of a wide age spectrum from teenagers, to 40’s and beyond; along with this they also target both genders. Psychographics segment involves playing tactics on people who are brand conscious, especially Coca-Cola. They will try to show their status by drinking Coca-Cola. The level of education is another factor that the company pays attention to.
On the other end, Pepsi’s website includes way too many visuals such as social media photos, promotion videos and etc. On their main page, they have an image archive, which consists of the general public. Pepsi’s site differs from Coca-Cola in the sense that they only have one main page, and one main site. This way all of their advertising only takes place in one site, and doesn’t bombard the audience with multiple website. The first category is “What’s Now”, shows the various campaigns and celebrity promotional videos, while the second link is “Your Voice”, a collection of images of Pepsi products sent by the public. The most populate way to upload these pictures are through Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Thirdly, the Brands tab displays only three kinds of Pepsi beverages: Pepsi Max, Diet Pepsi, and Pepsi Nest. Also, under Shop, Pepsi sells T-shirt, cups and bags.
At the main page, the remarkable thing is they focus on musical artists, this includes pictures from concerts, music videos and other musical functions. This shows they want to seem energetic and able to keep up with the younger generation. To distinguish themselves from Coca-Cola, they targeted different audiences, as Pepsi has always had a younger generation in mind. Their advertising and marketing strategies are fixed towards younger ages with a fun and most often interlaced with music. Therefore, consumers perceive the brand as a current and modern company.
Through the website’s articles and short news, their target audience is evident. They market with respect to social class, lifestyles and personalities as part of their Psychographic segment. They focus their attention towards lower, upper and middle class because they all can afford to drink Pepsi. The Behavioral segment is about benefits, occasions, and brand loyalty. The company tries to market their product for occasions such as weddings, concerts and sporting events. It also focuses on specific brand loyal people or the people who are heavy Pepsi users.
There are some similarities between Coca-Cola’s and Pepsi’s website. Both websites focus on customer participation but Coca-Cola’s website goes more in depth, as they use flash games and videos made by consumers themselves, while Pepsi focuses only on consumer’s social media activities related to Pepsi. Coca-Cola’s content organization looked messier because the website navigation is extremely complicated, and they drop down menu is overwhelming. While this will cover more information, the readers can’t focus on any one particular topic because once again it is confusing. If they keep this clutter up, then they won’t have a very high consumer satisfaction in regards to their website. On the other hand, Pepsi’s website covers all contents, on one website except the product store. This looks simpler and delivers a unified tone and manner.
Both websites do well on localizing as a worldwide brand, because they offer the site in various languages, and this keeps people united. While some people still claim that Pepsi and Coca-Cola taste different, it might not just be their taste that is fooling consumers but also the way that they presented. A lot of the credit goes to the marketing strategies and their websites because that is ultimately what brings and more consumers.