Ch. 8 - Segmenting and Targeting Markets

     In 2001, Coca-Cola test marketed a one-to-one marketing strategy in Australia. The promotion was called "Share a Coke". In this promotion, Coca-Cola sold beverages with customized labels on them. On these labels were popular boys and girls names in Coke's target market, which for this promotion was millennials. When Coke ran the program in Australia, they saw they're sales rise up by 4%. Recently Coca-Cola decided to expand it's "Share a Coke" campaign to many European nations. However, they did not receive the same reaction these new countries. There was an outrage from the Muslim community in Norway when the company decided to put Mohammed on some of it's bottles. Coke responded and promptly took the name off of their bottles.

     Coca-Cola often psycographically segments their products. Many of Coke's advertisements will feature happy, outgoing people. Demograpically, Coca-Cola's target market is younger people aged 18-25, and family oriented individuals 35 and older. Coca-Cola offers a wide variety of products to meet the needs of these vast groups. Towards the more health conscious psycographic, Coca-Cola will market products like Diet Coke and Coke Zero, and towards older people, Coke might advertise the classic Coke that they grew up with.

 One of the biggest ways Coke advertises is through sports. They will often purchase banners on the field of soccer games, and with the winter Olympics coming up in February,  expect to see a lot more of Coca-Cola there. Fans like myself can feel a connection with Coke when they see they're favorite athletes drinking Coke, and perhaps when thinking about an event that they went to will think of Coke.

     Coca-Cola has come under fire in the past, along with many other soft drink companies, for marketing their products to kids. This summer, Coke has promised to not advertise to children under 12, and to offer low-calorie beverage alternatives in each of the over 200 countries it operates in, and to sponsor physical fitness programs. This seems to be a giant leap forward from it's past of marketing to kids as young as toddlers.