Introduction and background:
Coca-Cola is one of the world’s largest beverage companies. It started its journey in 1886 as a small one-man business with modest average sales of nine servings per day. Since then, it has grown into the world’s most powerful brands with more than 1.9 billion servings sold each day in 200 different countries. Furthermore, Coca-Cola was ranked third in Forbes list of the most valuable brands in the world. Huge part of the success the company is enjoying and its impressive global presence, I believe, stems from its focus on advertising and weaving a universally relevant theme throughout their communications: happiness.
As stated on the Coca-Cola Company’s website, ever since the 1970s, “Coca‑Cola’s advertising started to reflect a brand connected with fun, friends and good times.” This advertising strategy has proven to be a success and have increased Coca-Cola’s marketshare considerably as shown in Figure1 below. But how did incorporating the theme of happiness in their ads help Coca-Cola become the dominant power of the market? This is what this I will investigate in this paper.
102870015240Figure1. Relative market share of Soft drinks in the US (1970-2000)
00Figure1. Relative market share of Soft drinks in the US (1970-2000)
This is an interesting topic because it tells us how the Coca-Cola Company maintained a strong brand identity in the global markets over the years and how it built that brand image in the first place. It also tells us about how Coca-Cola could persuade various people with different cultural backgrounds and ideologies to buy the same product.
The Coca-Cola Company comprises nearly 500 brands and 3000 beverage products; however, this paper will focus on the communication artifacts and advertising campaigns associated with one of its core products, the Coca-Cola drink. The campaigns I have