Original title: is Coca-Cola Company no good? Source: 36Kr Holdings

Editor's note: this article is from the official account "time interest Research Institute" (ID:SocialTouch2020) of Wechat, authored by keddy,36 Krypton.

Is the soda hard to sell?

Can the indestructible brand precipitate not bring sales?

A century-old brand, the former king of the beverage industry, Coca-Cola Company, known as the godfather of marketing, can save himself?

Recently, Coca-Cola Company, the founder of the beverage industry, reported second-quarter results with revenue of US $7.15 billion and net profit of US $1.981 billion, down 28% and 31.8% respectively from the same period last year, and the revenue decline was the highest in 25 years. Coca-Cola Company said it plans to step up marketing efforts in the second half of the year.

Why is there a decline?

The first thing that cannot be ignored is the decline in Off-trade caused by the epidemic, but looking back to the data in recent years, we can see that it has declined year after year since 2012, and the growth in 2019 is due to the introduction of new products and the addition of new categories by Coca-Cola Company.

The second is the topic that can never be avoided. Carbonated drinks are unhealthy, resulting in Coca-Cola Company's unstable position as king of carbonated drinks. There is a high degree of consistency in the recognition of carbonated drinks at home and abroad. When talking about Coke, it is often associated with obesity and sugar water.

There are also changes in the consumer market. It was not PepsiCo Inc who killed Coca-Cola Company, but coffee, functional drinks, tea, and milk tea. Although the Chinese market performed best in the second quarter, the changes of consumers still cannot be ignored, especially in such a complex and segmented consumer environment in China.

According to the CBNdata report, you can see that consumers pay more attention to the following three points for soft drinks:

1. Awakening of health awareness, carbonated drinks equate to unhealth

two。 Young consumers pursue the diversity of taste and taste and try to be fresh.

3. Different scenes match different needs, energy type, tea, sparkling water, fruit juice, milk tea and so on.

In view of the changes in consumers' preferences and habits, Coca-Cola Company also began to change her attitude, from chasing consumers to catching up with consumers' preferences. Coca-Cola Company also introduced drinks with different tastes and different orientations in line with the changes of consumers at the end of the product. but it can hardly stir up any big splash:

1. Consumers think that Coke contains too much sugar. Coca-Cola Company launched Coke 0, which focuses on sugar-free, but it is evaluated by professional institutions as dopamine, which stimulates consumers in a different way, which is still sweet and will still cause consumers to get fat after drinking it.

two。 Consumers like multi-flavor drinks. Coca-Cola Company launched cherry and vanilla cola, but Coke lovers said it was not as good as the original taste.

3. Consumers have an average of 15 beverage times a day. Coca-Cola Company has acquired a number of beverage companies, from mineral water, tea, coffee, fruit juice, etc., mainly focusing on the whole beverage combination, but consumers do not pay for Coca-Cola Company's drinks. On the contrary, many categories have become zombie brands. Recently, Coca-Cola Company also announced that he would lay out the dairy market in China and launch cryogenic milk products in cooperation with Mengniu. Let's wait and see.

Why are these changes not accepted by consumers? Have consumers changed?

In fact, young consumers have always been like this, like fresh, but nostalgic, like milk tea, also like the classic memory of cola, do not like to do multiple-choice questions, but also like to choose all kinds of milk tea bottom, like health, refuse obesity, refuse cola, but can not refuse milk tea, drink milk tea while losing weight …...

Consumer demands are constantly changing, and this is the younger generation of consumers.

It is not so much that consumers have changed, but that Coca-Cola Company has not changed all the time.

For one thing, what has not changed is the product strategy.

From the product point of view, Coca-Cola Company is indeed committed to product innovation and reconstruction, but mainly around Coke, equivalent to building derivatives, for consumers, Coke is a classic, mixed with other tastes, taste is not the icing on the cake, on the contrary, lost the original memory of the flavor.

It is difficult to surpass the classic, but to destroy the classic in an instant, what Coca-Cola Company needs to do is not to work on Coke, but to think about how to keep pace with the times to create another classic and popular style.

Second, what has not changed is the perception of consumers.

From Coca-Cola Company's acquisition of a number of beverage companies, the layout is relatively rich, in addition to the earlier acquisition of Fanta, Sprite, and the recent acquisition of the more famous Costa coffee, other drinks are little known. Even if Coca-Cola Company's brand name is used in marketing communication, it is difficult to get the halo effect of Coke.

In the past, consumers were very affectionate to the brand, they could drink only one kind of drink and wear only one brand of clothes, but it was not long-term affection, but limited by the relationship between supply and demand, causing consumers to follow the brand. Looking at the moment, any consumer can casually name 10 brands or more, and the public has more choices. When this relationship between supply and demand changes, the first thing that does not adapt is the traditional brand that is deeply rooted.

Third, what has not changed is the marketing core.

Throughout Coca-Cola Company's marketing in recent years, the strategy mainly promotes Coca-Cola Company's big brand, and small brand drinks will also reuse Coca-Cola Company's brand power when promoting, although the one with high consumer awareness is Coca-Cola Company, and Coca-Cola Company is the brand name. however, due to the long-term association with the main product, the brand and Coke have long been integrated, and consumers think of Coca-Cola Company as Coke.

Sometimes the halo effect of the brand is effective, but Coca-Cola Company is ineffective, because Coca-Cola Company's public awareness is very solid, and the word Coke is already a proper noun.

Over-reliance on the Coca-Cola Company brand makes it difficult to make other categories stand out.

Therefore, the epidemic and carbonated drinks, can not be carried by the pot, the core lies in the change of consumption.

Admittedly, Coca-Cola Company is also catering to consumers to make some marketing changes. in recent years, in the domestic market, Coca-Cola Company has targeted young consumers, Coca-Cola Company loyalty fans, families and other different circles for subdivision marketing. and very good at the use of bottle marketing, cross-border marketing, emotional marketing and sports marketing. For example:

1. Regional marketing:

Coca-Cola Company launched the city food jar, consumers use AR to scan the can body, you can get the corresponding city story and culture, appreciate the different taste of each city, the details are rich in urban food and cultural architectural elements. During this year's epidemic, Coca-Cola Company also launched a refueling bottle specifically for Wuhan. In the marketing circle, region is also one of the elements that Coca-Cola Company is good at using.

two。 Cross-border marketing:

Coca-Cola Company has played countless cross-border joint names, dabbling in almost every field, from beauty makeup to clothing, bags, museums, food and beverages, and so on, carrying out cross-border and innovation in various fields, not only maintaining a certain degree of high activity and creating topics. at the same time, through a variety of strange co-names to harvest the curiosity and affection of young consumers.

For example, Coca-Cola Company and the Philippine Poetry Shop jointly launched a limited edition of new products, using bright red and white colors, cool cola flavor, classic and trendy collision, from air cushion to lipstick, eye shadow, etc., and indeed aroused the desire of many consumers to buy.

And cross-border marketing with the Avengers, with classic characters as the main characters, and exciting copywriting from the perspective of the characters, arousing consumer resonance.

3. Emotional marketing:

As a century-old brand, compared with other brands, the most indispensable thing should be feelings, Coca-Cola Company is also well-versed in it, feelings marketing has become Coca-Cola Company's regular way to play.

For example, on Coca-Cola Company's 134th birthday, Coca-Cola Company launched "in the body" and did something he had never done before-- creating a set of Chinese fonts that merged Coca-Cola Company's brand culture with the charm of Chinese culture and aroused widespread attention. this emotional expression for Chinese consumers can be said to be very sincere and resonates with a lot of Coca-Cola Company fans.

4. Sports Marketing:

One of Coca-Cola Company's major consumption scenes is when watching sports events, which should benefit from the early market education, Coca-Cola Company sports marketing. Coca-Cola Company can be seen in almost all previous events, large and small. For example, during the World Cup, Coca-Cola Company took the opportunity to launch a popularity list, sponsorship and cooperation during the Beijing Olympic Games, and so on. Due to the postponement of the Olympic Games this year, it also had a certain impact on Coca-Cola Company.

In fact, the competition between the beverage industry is not taste, but lifestyle changes, followed by should match the corresponding marketing changes. Time interest believes that on the one hand, Coca-Cola Company needs to maintain the same brand exposure, and on the other hand, he needs to change the perspective and attention in the marketing strategy to change the previous communication strategy.

1. Marketing replacement, we can see that Coca-Cola Company's daily communication and marketing reach are the target users, but Coca-Cola Company due to the consumption scene, the purchase path of consumers will be disturbed, this part of the interference crowd is still the need to reach the crowd.

two。 To reshape the consumption scene, the cognition of fat house happy water has also become one of the obstacles in the imperceptible influence. Compared with milk tea, you should drink milk tea when you are in a bad mood, drink milk tea when you are happy, and chat with friends when you meet friends. Lonely, walking, sitting quietly, reading, and so on, it seems that there are many scenes suitable for milk tea, but Coke is limited by family scenes, how to integrate into consumers' daily life. It can also be used as a breakthrough in marketing to stimulate more consumption.

3. Brand inheritance is biased towards product inheritance, you know, a century-old brand needs not only brand inheritance, but also product inheritance in order to be in an invincible position. So far, many consumers still know the name of Nokia, but no one uses Nokia phones. Coca-Cola Company needs to be on guard against such consumption changes.

To sum up, there is no doubt that Coca-Cola Company is already a great brand, but back to the Coke product, marketing needs to shift the focus to deep insight into consumers, how to communicate with consumers and promote their transformation is the next marketing focus, not the icing on the cake at the brand level.