Product:
In order for an organization to be successful it needs to have a well-defined marketing mix. The marketing mix consists of the four P’s; product, place, price, promotion (Hair, Lamb, & McDaniel, 2006, p. 48). Product is defined as “everything, both favorable and unfavorable, that a person receives in exchange” (Hair, Lamb, & McDaniel, 2006, p. 48). The Coca-Cola Company’s products consist of beverage concentrates and syrups, with the main product being the finished beverages (Coca-Cola Datamonitor, 2007). Coca-Cola’s products can be viewed as both business and consumer products. Ultimately, the main goal of the Coca-Cola Company’s is to satisfy a consumer’s personal want, which is the definition of consumer products (Hair, Lamb, & McDaniel, 2006, p. 248). The type of consumer product the Coca-Cola Company creates is convenience product. Convenience products normally require a wide distribution in order to sell sufficient quantities to meet profit goals (Hair, Lamb, & McDaniel, 2006, p. 285). In addition, the Coca-Cola Company often pays a certain amount to retail stores to resell their product. Therefore the Coca-Cola Company products can be considered a business product.
The Coca-Cola Company has a fairly large product mix which contains about 400 brands, including diet and light beverages, waters, juice and juice drinks, teas, coffees, energy, and sports drinks (Coca-Cola Datamonitor, 2007). The Coca-Cola Company has increased its product mix width since 1960. This enabled the Coca-Cola Company to spread risk across many product lines rather than depend only on one and to help generate sales and boost profits within its organization (Hair, Lamb, & McDaniel, 2006, p. 287). The Coca-Cola Company also packages its products different sizes to appeal to certain consumers (Hair, Lamb, & McDaniel, 2006, p. 286). For example, Diet Coke is available in twelve-ounce or even