Creative Product Promotion Describe the Promotional Mix

(a) Describe the promotional mix used by two selected organisations for a selected product/service. Coca-Cola Founded in 1886 by pharmacist Dr John S Pemberton in Atlanta, Georgia, The CocaCola Company is the world’s leading manufacturer, marketer and distributor of non-alcoholic beverage concentrates and syrups, and produces nearly 400 brands. www. coca-cola. co. uk/about-us/introducing-our-business. html Coca-Cola was invented by Dr John Stith Pemberton and first went on sale at Jacob’s Pharmacy in Atlanta, Georgia and these days Coca-Cola is the world’s most favourite and most profitable drink from 1886.

PROMOTIONAL MIX Advertising – Coca-Cola uses one of the most modern and popular advertising. Christmas advertisment most popular and Coca-Cola uses Santa Clause because he is with red suit and a white beard and he did not always look that way as Coca-Cola advertising shaped him like that. They use different types of advertising such as: * Print ads * Radio * Television * Billboards * Banners * Brochures * Signs * In-store displays * Posters * Web Pages * Motion Pictures Personal selling – Coca-Cola Corporation avoids personal selling but in case of large store and hotels etc. t does use personal selling. The sale officers contact the owners and sell their products directly to owners. Sales promotion – Sale promotion is very important because it can help to increase sales in a competitive market and thus, increase profits also it will help to sell all the existing stocks and there are many more advantages but not only for the company because consumers gets the product at a cheaper rate. The different types of sale promotions that Coca-Cola uses:

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Buy one get one free – long time ago Coca-Cola used buy 2L get 1L free and they found that this is not as effective as “buy one get one free” therefore from now on they are using this technique. Media – Coca-Cola always used this technique as it was most popular and profitable at the same time. To explain what is media it is a special code or message that can be found on the back of the cap and they used two different methods for that. First was more profitable way which was putting there codes and you had to send message or call a number shown to enter a lucky draw with various prizes.

Second was putting messages on back of the cap where you could win another bottle of Coke instantly. Last but not least they used Joint Promotion – this is getting more and more popular. Coke is having a promotion from McDonalds, Dominos, KFC, Burger King and many other places, because for example Dominos might have a special offer when you buy a pizza you get a bottle of coke free. Public relations – The Coca-Cola has come up with a great public relations plan to use social media like Twitter and Facebook to convey their views on the environment and the actions they are taking.

With campaigns like the Polar Bear campaign they started to integrate social media into their public relations. Also Coca-Cola reduced the percent of plastic in product bottling and made bottles recyclable. Direct Marketing is a channel-agnostic form of advertising that allows businesses and nonprofits to communicate straight to the customer, with advertising techniques such as mobile messaging, email, interactive consumer websites, online display ads, fliers, catalog distribution, promotional letters, and outdoor advertising.

Corporate image Coca-Cola has a good corporate image although they had problems with the content of the coca-cola as it was containing a lot of sugar, caramel color, caffeine and it made it very addictive therefore Coca-cola had to reduce amounts of bad ingredients. As you can see from this chart it shows nutrition information and GDA of 500ml of Coca-Cola it clearly shows that 1L of Coca-cola would exceed GDA of sugar if consumed in one day. Corporate image may also be considered as the sixth aspect of promotion mix.

The Image of an organization is a crucial point in marketing. If the reputation of a company is bad, consumers are less willing to buy a product from this company as they would have been, if the company had a good image. Sponsorship is sometimes added as an seventh aspect. Direct Marketing Coca-Cola does not use direct marketing techniques although they could consider using direct marketing techniques such as mobile messaging, email, interactive consumer websites, fliers and outdoor advertising

Sponsorship – Coca-Cola is proud to have a long history of sponsoring major events such as American Idol, NBA and even more London Olympics Games, not even they get a good advertising from those events but moreover they are even making profit, and what is better than getting advertising for free. McDonalds Happy Meal Advertising – they advertise diffrent times of the day, they also put toys in happy meal that is related to popular movies. “Happy meal” comes in the box hat has games and colorful images and even more they even have a website that is represented in “happy meal” and animation around it. Coorparate image – McDonalds had bad coorparate images until they started to recycle bags and they also added healthy menu, happy meals over time is increasing its demand as kids likes to get a toy with their meal and also its a good choice of meal. Direct Marketing – McDonalds uses direct marketing through the parents to the children to sell happy meal, also they sell it via drive-through by offering “Happy Meal”.

Personal selling – McDonalds uses personal selling and staff which are appointed for personal selling they are the one who perform the activities regarding selling up of goods to customers and almost every time if you order something one of the staff members will ask you do you want fries or drink with that and if someone comes with the kid they will offer happy meal for them. Sales promotion – McDonalds uses sales promotion through organizing various contests, programs, functions and promoting different choice of products in the happy meal.

Also they uses their happy meal box to advertise latest movies and a lot of different events that children finds it attractive. Sponsorship – No one expected, but 2012 McDonald’s was the biggest sponsorship for London Olympics Games and from my view of point that was a very smart move, because they made a lot of profit out of it, because they was selling their fast-food during Olympics and moreover they had so much advertising that just increased their market share and even improved their corporate image.

Publicly and public relationship –yes they have healthy opton adn they are part of the olympics Public relations – McDonald’s are improving their public relations over the years and their “Happy Meal” is favourite choice for the kids. To improve their public relations McDonald’s have created their “Facebook” and “Twitter” pages also they setup and YouTube channel to keep the customers updated with the latest products and promotions. Recommendations McDonalds

In my opinion McDonalds should still try to improve their corporate image, because they had a lot of bad stories about their business that their food contains bad ingredients that are dangerous for your health so in order to do that they could decrease fat content and try to add more healthy options in their menu. Another good recommendation would be more choises in happy meal such as different burgers or drinks. All in all McDonalds is a strong brand and these recommendations would not affect them a lot, but still too maximise profit and customer satisfaction they must follow every single smart recommendation possible.

Coca-Cola Coca-Cola had a lot of bad stories in past and a lot of them has to do with business ethics and not being environmentally friendly therefore they made their corporate image bad for a while, and some people still remember those things. In order to improve their corporate image Coca-Cola should try to be more energy efficient, recycle more of their products, make more events and charities, create new products and keep their products at competitive price. All in all coke is most popular soft drink in the world and it going to stay for a long time if they keep doing good job.