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Cola Wars

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Submitted By schase06
Words 476
Pages 2
Group 1
Stephen Grance
Stephanie Morales
Scott Chase
Janice Fuentes

Since the beginning, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo have shown a great ability to adjust to

changes in the market, as well as a great capacity to constantly innovate their products. When

facing changing trends by consumers, they were both able to overcome difficult situations,

turning them into the industry favorites and to convert them into potential progress, through the

creation of new products, which allowed them to keep their profit margins high.

In this case, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo it is essential that this strategy follows an increase in

the investment on marketing, with a constant innovation of campaigns, which could lead to a

boost in sales and convey a different image of the companies, portraying them as being involved

in the whole of the beverage market, rather than just the carbonated drinks market, thus

reinforcing its orientation towards non-carbonated drinks. If we think that the introduction of

non-carbonated drinks by Pepsi and Coke represent 80% and 100% of their growth, respectively,

we can predict the impact of this measure. Despite the need to adapt to consumers, Coca-Cola

and Pepsi should maintain their focus on their core products, which is where they hold a strong

advantage, as far as competition is concerned.

These wars affected the industry’s profits: firstly, the competition for supermarket shelf

space led to a decrease in retail prices; also, as a result of intense competition, bottlers saw an

increase in capital requirements, followed by a decrease in margins. Sustaining profits in a

market which is giving more and more importance to the non-carbonated drinks can be a difficult

task to achieve, but through marketing we believe it could help both companies in reaching

through marketing.

Academic

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