Marketing planning of Pepsi and Coca-Cola

The world's first bottle of Coca-Cola was born in the United States in 1886, with a history of 1 13 years. This magical drink has conquered hundreds of millions of consumers around the world with its irresistible charm, becoming the "king of drinks in the world" and even enjoying the reputation of "drinks never set in the empire". However, just when Coca-Cola was in full swing, another company also held high the banner of "Coke" and dared to challenge. It claims to be "the favorite company of customers all over the world", and it has intensified its confrontation with Coca-Cola, and finally formed a strong enemy. This is Pepsi.

The new coke challenges the old coke.

The world's first bottle of Pepsi was also born in the United States, in 1898, two years later than the appearance of Coca-Cola, and last year was its100th birthday. It tastes very similar to Coca-Cola with top secret formula, so it was named Pepsi with the help of Coca-Cola.

Because Coca-Cola began to explore the market as early as 65,438+00 years ago, it has gained a reputation, controlled most of the carbonated beverage market and formed a fixed pattern in people's minds. Speaking of Coca-Cola, it belongs to Coca-Cola. Pepsi-Cola had not improved before the Second World War, and was on the verge of bankruptcy twice. The beverage market was still dominated by Coca-Cola. Despite the great crisis that began at 1929 and during World War II, Pepsi did not hesitate to reduce its price to 5 cents/pound, which was half the price of Coca-Cola, so that almost every American knew the mantra that "a nickel can buy 1 times more Pepsi-Cola", but Pepsi-Cola still failed to get out of the predicament.

In the beverage industry, Coca-Cola and Pepsi are market leaders and market followers (challengers). As market followers, there are two strategies to choose from: attacking market leaders to win more market share; Or participate in the competition, but do not let the market share change significantly. Obviously, after nearly half a century of practice, PepsiCo found that the latter option could not even guarantee the company's survival, and it would not work. As a result, Pepsi began to adopt the former strategy and issued a strong challenge to Coca-Cola, which was exactly what "Pepsi talents" such as Steele, Kent and Karaoui did after World War II.

Pepsi generation

At this time, the development of Pepsi has a very favorable environment. After World War II, a large number of young people were born in America. They have not been baptized by the great crisis and war, and they are confident and optimistic, which is very different from their predecessors. These little guys are growing up and will gradually become the main force of the United States. Their appetite for everything is both big and new, which provides the basis for Pepsi's marketing activities for the "new generation".

However, it was not until Pepsi handed over its advertising business to BBDO (Barton-Durstine and Osborne) advertising company in 1960 that things became clear. At that time, Coca-Cola overwhelmed Pepsi with an absolute advantage of 5∶ 1. BBDO Company analyzed the changes of consumer composition and consumer psychology, aimed the fire at the "traditional" image of Coca-Cola, and made various efforts to turn Pepsi into a young people's drink. After four years of brewing, the slogan "Pepsi New Generation" was officially launched and has been used for more than 20 years. 10 years later, when Coca-Cola tried to respond to Pepsi's advertisement to capture the next generation, its advantage over Pepsi had shrunk to 2∶ 1. At this time, BBDO assisted PepsiCo to formulate a further strategy and launched an all-round attack on Coca-Cola, which was called "Pepsi's challenge" by the world. Two of them played very well.

The first beautiful battle was the tasting experiment and the subsequent publicity activities. From 65438 to 0975, Pepsi conducted a tasting experiment in Dallas. Pepsi and Coca-Cola were stripped of their trademarks and engraved with the letters M and Q respectively. The results show that Pepsi is more popular than Coca-Cola. Subsequently, BBDO Company publicized this. In the advertisement, the loyal customers of Coca-Cola chose Pepsi with the letter M, while Coca-Cola with the letter Q was ignored. Advertising has completely achieved the expected purpose of Pepsi and BBDO: to make consumers reconsider their loyalty to the "old" coke and compare it with the "new" coke. Coca-Cola can't do anything about it, except accuse people of being immoral and criticizing people's natural preference for the letter M. As a result, Pepsi's sales soared and the gap with Coca-Cola narrowed to 2∶3.

At the end of 1983, BBDO advertising company hired Michael again for $5 million. Jackson shot two commercials and organized an advertising tour for the Jackson brothers. This hit rock star won the enthusiasm of the younger generation for Pepsi. Only one month after the advertisement was broadcast, the sales of Pepsi soared. According to PepsiCo's own statistics, about 97% of Americans have seen advertisements in the year when the advertisements were broadcast, per capita 12 times.

Almost at the same time, Pepsi took advantage of the interest dispute between Coca-Cola and the packagers and the opposition of the US Federal Trade Commission to the licensed packaging system in the beverage industry to win over several packagers, and caused the Coca-Cola Company to suffer a very public setback. 1May, 984, the fast food joint number Berg, which is responsible for the official beverage supply? Gold Company was dissatisfied with Coca-Cola's switch to rival McDonald's, so it gave Pepsi a contract to make it 2,300 Berg? Golden fast food restaurant provides 30 million liters of drinks, which alone increases Pepsi's income by 30 million dollars every year. Berg? The defection of Kim Jong Il has benefited PepsiCo a lot.

Pepsi's manager, John, is only in his thirties. Sculley firmly believes that "Pepsi will eventually beat Coca-Cola for two reasons: taste and sales". This prophecy has finally come true now. Less than three years after Pepsi launched the challenge, American Businessweek began to doubt whether Coca-Cola had enough defensive skills and sales methods to resist Pepsi's fierce attack. On June 1978 and 12, the cover of Businessweek was impressively printed with "Pepsi won the championship". Answer? c？ Nielsen's monthly survey report on store beverage sales also shows that Pepsi is ahead of Coca-Cola for the first time.

Colors: red and blue

In fact, the trademark design of Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola may best reflect their characteristics and positioning.

Coca-Cola chooses red, and white Spencer cursive "Coca-Cola" is printed on a bright red background. The white characters have a leisurely beating state against the red background, and the cursive script gives people the feeling of coherence, streamline and elegance. Red and white, with traditional colors, looks simple, elegant and energetic.

Pepsi chose blue. On a pure white background, the blue font "Pepsi" is similar to China's running script. The blue words stand out against the white background, showing a positive and enterprising state. As we all know, blue is a symbol of exquisiteness, innovation and youth. IBM, the vanguard of high-tech industry, chose blue as the main color of the company and was called "Blue Giant". The color of Pepsi and its corporate image and positioning have reached a perfect unity.

Starting from the vacuum area

Pepsi-Cola not only launched the most powerful challenge to Coca-Cola in the domestic market of the United States, but also launched a challenge to Coca-Cola in the markets of all countries in the world.

Just like the domestic market, Pepsi has little space because of Coca-Cola's ancestor advantage. Pepsi's strategy is to enter the "vacuum zone" where Coca-Cola Company has not yet entered or failed. At that time, the company's chairman Donald? After in-depth investigation and study, Kent found that there are still a lot of blank areas in the former Soviet Union, China, Asia and Africa that can make a difference.

Kent's best friend, American President Nixon, helped a lot. 1959, the American exhibition was held in Moscow. Kent took advantage of his special relationship with Nixon, then vice president of the United States, and asked Nixon to "try to make Soviet leaders drink a Pepsi." Nixon obviously talked to Khrushchev, so in front of the cameras of journalists from all over the world, Khrushchev showed a satisfied expression with Pepsi in his hand. This is the most special advertisement. Since then, Pepsi has gained a firm foothold in the former Soviet Union, which has greatly promoted Pepsi's entry into the countries and regions of the former Soviet Union. However, although Pepsi entered the market of the former Soviet Union, it failed to realize the plan of establishing a factory and monopolizing the sales of Coke in the former Soviet Union. Therefore, in 1975, Pepsi won the right to establish a production factory in the former Soviet Union and monopolize its sales on the condition of helping the former Soviet Union sell vodka, becoming the first private enterprise in the United States to enter the former Soviet Union market. This incident immediately caused a sensation in the United States, and all major newspapers and periodicals reported the news in the headlines.

In Israel, Coca-Cola took the lead in setting up a branch factory. However, this move caused resistance from Arab countries. When Pepsi saw the opportunity, it immediately gave up Israel, which did not benefit from it, and gained other markets in the Middle East in one fell swoop, occupying every corner around the Arabian Sea, making Pepsi a daily vocabulary in Arabic.

In the late 1970s, the Indian government announced that Coca-Cola could only be distributed in India if the formula was announced. As a result, the two sides could not reach an agreement and Coca-Cola withdrew from India. There is no secret about Pepsi's formula, so it took the opportunity to enter this important market in exchange for establishing grain processing plants and increasing agricultural exports.

When Pepsi expanded its international market, it always regarded Nixon as its secret weapon. After Nixon's fiasco in the 1960s, Pepsi still actively supported him. Mr Kent hired Nixon as a consultant and lawyer of Pepsi with an annual salary of $654.38 million. On the other hand, Nixon used his connections to travel around the world and promote Pepsi. After he successfully ran for the presidency of the United States, he appointed Kent as the economic policy adviser of the president, which gave him the opportunity to influence the economic policy, thus creating a favorable position for Pepsi to compete with Coca-Cola in the world market.

When competing with Coca-Cola in the international market, Pepsi-Cola is very good at relying on political circles to seize special opportunities and seize the market from Coca-Cola by unique means.

Another kind of diversification

Due to the fierce competition in the beverage industry, in order to avoid risks, both Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola have chosen diversification. However, the benefits brought by diversification to the two companies are quite different, and Pepsi has once again defeated Coca-Cola in this special competition.

Since the 1970s, Coca-Cola Company has made great progress in other industries unrelated to beverages, investing heavily in water purification, brewing, shrimp culture, fruit production, film and television and other fields, and acquiring and establishing new enterprises in these industries, including the huge transaction that the company spent $750 million to acquire Columbia Studio in June 1982+ 10. However, the return of these investments to the shareholders of the company is pitiful, and the return on capital is only 1%. It was not until the mid-1980s that Coca-Cola Company focused on its main business, resulting in soaring profits.

Pepsi is much luckier. Since 1960s, it has tried to break the single business category, rapidly develop other industries and make the company a diversified enterprise. From 1977, Pepsi entered the fast food industry, and successively took over KFC, Pizza Hut Italian pizza and Taco Bell Mexican restaurant. Pepsi's opponent this time is McDonald's, the fast food king. KFC, Pizza Hut and Tektronix were only hot and cold restaurants before being merged by Pepsi, and they only had a slight advantage in their own narrow market. After Pepsi merged them, it immediately put forward that the target and opponent "should not be another fried chicken shop and pie shop in the city, but the great McDonald's!" Therefore, Pepsi launched a challenge to the strong in the fast food industry.

At that time, inflation in the United States was rising, and the food price of McDonald's was also rising. Pepsi seized the opportunity and used it as a breakthrough to launch an offensive. The company has made continuous efforts to reduce costs and formulated the principle of "simplification, simplification and simplification again" (not referring to the output and quality of food here, but to the minimization of non-food operating expenses). For example, prepare some food in advance, barbecue beef outside the store, minimize kitchen land and reduce labor costs; Modify the menu, put the fast-cooked dishes in front, and speed up the circulation. As a result, sales quickly doubled, while employees were only half of the original. Due to the rapid increase of income, the sharp reduction of costs and the soaring profits, it has been able to compete with McDonald's and promote the sales of Pepsi-Cola drinks.

PepsiCo has also created a new marketing method of "door-to-door delivery" in the fast food industry. Wayne, then president of PepsiCo? Karaoui said, "If we just wait for busy people to come to restaurants, we can't prosper. We should make the supply of fried chicken and pie as convenient as watching time. "

Pepsi-Cola won the favor of customers with its high quality and cheap food and efficient and diverse services, and its sales reached a new high every year, and soon became the most profitable catering company in the world. Many established fast food enterprises have been defeated by Pepsi's aggressive offensive, and even McDonald's has been greatly threatened. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the annual profit margin of McDonald's Company was 8%, while that of Pepsi Fast Food Company was as high as 20%.

Pepsi finally caught up with its competitors on the 92nd anniversary of its birth. 1990, the two major colas share the market equally, and Pepsi even exceeds 1 100 million dollars in retail. In a.d.? c？ Nielsen Company surveyed 9000 consumers in America, Europe and Japan, and ranked 10 the most influential brands in the world. Pepsi and Coca-Cola both won this honor, ranking sixth and eighth respectively. Pepsi has realized its dream of becoming the favorite company of consumers all over the world. During the period of 1997, PepsiCo's global sales amounted to $29.292 billion, ranking 92nd among the 98 fortune 500 companies and being the world champion of beverage enterprises. Coca-Cola only ranked second, with sales of only1886.8 billion US dollars, ranking 20 1.

Coca-Cola is in China

Because Coca-Cola is the first American enterprise to enter China, and it has incomparable advantages over Pepsi-Cola, Pepsi-Cola is also in the position of challenger in China.

Pepsi's competitive strategy in China market is mainly:

1. The target is young people and sports enthusiasts. 1In March, 1999, China Football Association announced that China Football Association and International Management Group had formally signed an agreement through friendly negotiation, and PepsiCo would buy out the naming rights of Chinese Football League I in the next five years. 1999 By 2003, the A-League will be named the Pepsi National Football League, and the contract stipulates that other beverage companies are prohibited from entering the A-League clubs and teams. PepsiCo also participates in sports in China in various forms to expand its influence among sports fans. Besides, Pepsi's advertisements are mainly about fashion, trendy, young people or sports people.

2. Focus on the development of Beijing and major large and medium-sized cities in the south. At present, Pepsi products have been produced in China 12 joint venture bottling plants, including Beijing, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Fuzhou, Shanghai, Nanchang, Guilin, Chengdu, Chongqing and Changchun, all of which are southern cities except Beijing and Changchun, among which Shanghai, Fuzhou, Chengdu and Chongqing are considered to be the most important territories of Pepsi.

3. Merger and acquisition of domestic beverage enterprises. 1993, PepsiCo established PepsiCo Asia Beverage Co., Ltd. in Guangzhou, and set up two concentrated solution factories: one for producing Pepsi beverages and the other for producing local brands. 1994, Pepsi reached an agreement with Tianfu Coke and Arctic Ocean Beverage Company to establish Chongqing Pepsi Tianfu Beverage Co., Ltd. and Beijing Pepsi Arctic Ocean Beverage Co., Ltd.

4. Diversification. PepsiCo's beverage and catering business has been launched in China. At present, the products of Pepsi-Cola beverages in China include Pepsi-Cola, 7-up, mirinda, Ji Lang and Arctic Ocean. Pepsi's restaurants in China are mainly KFC fried chicken and Pizza Hut pizza.

Since 1993, PepsiCo signed a memorandum of cooperation and development with China National Light Industry Federation, the company has invested 700 million US dollars in the same domestic project, and has 12 joint venture bottling plants and 3 concentrated solution production plants. PepsiCo International Group also plans to set up nine new factories in China in the next five years. Together with local partners, the company will transfer advanced technology and equipment and introduce modern management and market system.

The positive expansion of Pepsi has achieved remarkable results, and its sales in China increased by 50% only in 1994. However, in the coke market in China, Coca-Cola is still in an absolute advantage. 65438-0998 In China carbonated beverage market, four of the top five brands are Coca-Cola. 1999 February 1-28, Coca-Cola Company posted four huge Coca-Cola advertisements with a total area of nearly 9,000 square meters on the building of China Minsheng Bank in Shanghai People's Square, openly challenging Pepsi-Cola at home, showing its great momentum.

On February 2nd, 1999, Wahaha Group, which launched Coca-Cola, conducted a questionnaire survey of "rating Coca-Cola" among consumers all over the country through China Business News. The calculation center of Beijing Bureau of Statistics made statistics on the collected questionnaires. The results show that among the consumers who participated in the survey, 63% preferred Coca-Cola, 34% preferred Very Cola and only 3% Pepsi. According to analysis, China people have two kinds of mentality: advocating foreign life and caring about domestic products. Coca-cola has become synonymous with "coke" with its pure American taste, and has been unanimously loved by the former mentality; And very cola won the latter part of the people; Pepsi's positioning of young people has not been generally recognized, so it ranks last. Even the fledgling Coca-Cola can't compete with it. It seems that Pepsi still has a long way to go in China.

However, with the spirit of challenging strong players, excellent business and sales experience, and the advantages of talent gathering, Pepsi will never be complacent, and the fun is yet to come.

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The war between Pepsi and Coca-Cola has been raging, among which Pepsi has been praised for its courage to challenge and its means of market competition. In the end, Pepsi gained a place.

When we set our eyes on the world, especially the large multinational companies represented by the Fortune 500, we deeply feel how small the enterprises in China are compared with them. But competition is inevitable. China enterprises must learn the spirit of Pepsi and face world-class players bravely. Actually, it's not without a chance. Compared with emerging small enterprises, large enterprises with a long history also have fatal weaknesses. PepsiCo seized the opportunity brought by the adjustment of Coca-Cola's management organization and personnel disputes, launched a powerful impact on Coca-Cola, and achieved brilliant results.

Of course, what we should learn most is how Pepsi can challenge the strong players. The main way for Pepsi to challenge Coca-Cola in the United States is its outstanding market positioning and control of sales channels. In the era when Coca-Cola dominated the world, Pepsi positioned itself as "innovative, young and energetic" in view of the strong demand of young people for carbonated drinks and their future purchasing potential, which was very attractive to American young people in the 1960s and controlled the packaging company in the sales channels, so it was able to rise suddenly. When Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola competed for the coke market, Qixi positioned herself as a non-cola, which quickly opened the market.

In the international market, Pepsi's competitive strategy is also unique. It seized the opportunity and occupied the "vacuum zone" of Coca-Cola, which not only avoided the situation of backwardness and mutual loss, but also formed a large-scale monopoly. PepsiCo's challenge to McDonald's and other fast food companies is mainly to "provide high-quality and low-cost products, efficient and diverse services and continuous innovation". They are all unique and accurate, and the strategy is to the point, which meets the customer's psychology and needs, so it can be effective.

Recently, Coca-Cola, Huang Fen Coca-Cola and China Coca-Cola have been launched one after another, which set off a coke war in China. We should learn the spirit of Pepsi, especially the competitive means of Pepsi, find the right position and do a good job in marketing.

However, these three cokes seem to have no other creativity except emphasizing that they are domestic products. Take Huang Fen Coke as an example. Now, there are two advertisements for Huang Fen Coke on TV, namely "Against Unfair" and "Dragon Boat". The content of the former is: After the Huang Fen Coke in his hand was robbed, the little boy was helpless. At this time, Jackie Chan was very brave and took the coke back. The little boy admired Jackie Chan's kung fu, threw away the Huang Fen Coke in his hand and asked for another try. The content of the latter is: everyone shoulders the keel and enters the water, and people sweat like rain. At this moment, a can of Huang Fen Coke appeared. Jackie Chan opened it, looked up and took a sip, and then said, "Huang Fen Coke, everyone is happy." Experts commented that the previous advertisement seemed to be Jackie Chan's Kung Fu advertisement, not Huang Fen Coke. Turning coke into a toy does not affect its integrity at all. The latter is nothing more than the appeal that Huang Fen Coke can quench thirst, especially when sweating profusely, and it is no different from other cokes. The problems of these two advertisements are: inaccurate positioning, not deep, and no characteristics.

In fact, this is the performance of Huang Fen Coke's uncertainty about its product positioning, and so are the other two cokes. In the era when foreign coke is rampant, the promotion of "China people's own coke" can certainly win some customers, so Coca-Cola first took this as its appeal and achieved certain results. However, consumers are not only concerned about domestic products, but what are the novelty and uniqueness of domestic products compared with foreign colas, and whether they can accept and like them. Obviously, this can be achieved not only by the word "domestic products". If Coke is well marketed, it is not nonsense to make full use of Wahaha's influence on children and cultivate the future "Wahaha generation". Now, in Taiwan Province Province, it is not Coca-Cola or Pepsi that accounts for more than 60% of the soft drink market, but local beverage companies. Its secret lies in its unique market positioning and firm control of sales channels.

This is exactly what we need to learn from Pepsi.