Comprehensive Analysis of the Pepsi Company

Introduction

Pepsi is one of the world-renowned soft drink brands. It was formulated in 1898 by Caleb Bradham. It holds the title of a multinational company due to the large spread of its operation worldwide. It has devised multiple marketing strategies to target consumers, especially the young. It had started many marketing campaigns related to the advertisement involving different global stars worldwide. Besides soft drinks, Pepsi is a large brand that produces other foods and beverage goods. The mission of Pepsi is always the same to be the best brand in soft drinks. The investors are encouraged to invest in this brand to provide them with different opportunities and make them contended.

Direction

Perform a Competitor Analysis

Identify other current and potential direct competitors (Was not exampled in this section)

Identify current and potential indirect competitors (Indicated the current BUT Need the potential indirect competitors)

Direct Competitors

In every business, some competitors strive to be at the top. Due to this, every brand tries to introduce something innovative in itself with the fact it may get a competitive advantage over other competitors. The three direct competitors of Pepsi are:

• Coca-Cola Company
• Pepper Snapple Group, Inc.
• Mondelez International, Inc.

Each of these competitors holds critical importance in the global market. The Coca-Cola Company takes the utmost priority. Pepsi and Coca-Cola have emerged as the captivators of the world market. They have seized the marketing networks through their beverages. Any other competitor is to endure many hardships to make itself up to the level of these brands. Dr. Pepper Snapple Group, Inc. becomes successful in seizing the local market through the use of unique taste of their soft drinks. Regional and local markets in the United States are taken by this brand quickly with the decline in the demand of Pepsi and Coke. However, they still lack the hold of global markets.

Mondelez International, Inc is a world-famous multinational company that is currently seizing 165 countries around the world. There are lots of varieties of the products that it sells starting from snacks to beverages that differ in taste. Many small firms are subjugated by Mondelez International, Inc, including those dealing in dairy products.

Other potential direct competitors that could threaten the Pepsi brand are Nestle Corporation, Danone, and other food companies like Kraft Foods and Unilever. Nestle is a Swiss multinational corporation reaching the top list of famous, renowned brands in the world. It has been proven to be the world’s largest food company by measuring its revenues and demand. Danone is a multinational food company in France that struggles to provide better nutrition to its clientele through food products. Many countries including Russia and China internationally organize Danone. Numerous allegations have been passed against each competitor due to criminal networks or soft drinks, yet they strive to overcome this criticism from their competitors.

Indirect Competitors

Indirect competitors of Pepsi that have an impact on Pepsi brand are:

• Red Bull
• Vitamin C
• Minute Maid

These competitors have encouraged consumers of every age to maintain a healthy and sound diet by the use of their products. Different user patterns have been observed by analysts, proving that there is a huge demand for energy drinks compared to these soft drinks. Many individual consumers are indulging in having a sound and healthy life. For this, they have a check on a well-balanced diet with all the nutrients required for the body. Indirect competitors of Pepsi are keen in producing beverages that are natural and have a good taste. They have started awareness program to indulge consumers and seize their minds to buy their products.

In today’s world full of impurities, global media highlights the use of artificial flavors used by many brands to improve the taste of their products. They are showing their impacts on human lives, resulting in giving birth to some diseases. Because of this, many people have neglected buying these artificial flavor soft drinks, and they are more into buying something natural to ensure a safe and healthy life. This increases the demand of indirect competitors of Pepsi around the world with a dramatic impact on the revenues of Pepsi and Coca-Cola.

Comprehensive Marketing Assessment

Directions

Provide a Comprehensive Strategy Assessment

• Describe each key competitor’s current positioning/marketing strategy
• What are each key competitor’s major sources of competitive advantage
• What additional sources of competitive advantage could each develop in the future
• Select one (nearest) competitor for further focus, then provide:
• New positioning and accompanying new marketing strategies that you recommend for your company vis-à-vis the competitor
• Why do you recommend these particular strategies for your company
• How these strategies would be implemented
• How their success should be measured

 Assessment is necessary for the organization to be on the right path to achieving its missions and goals. The arrangements being made for the marketing assessment show the importance that the organizations give to meet their objectives. It promotes advertising and other techniques goals keeping in mind the right direction for the team. The syntax of the marketing plan mostly depends upon the team’s development.

Startups usually have to put less effort into the marketing plan and request fewer resources to finish the marketing assessment while still focusing on the primary activities to be done by a team. Over time, with more variations in the consumer patterns of the particular product of the startups and with the increase in marketing and sales, a more refined and comprehensive marketing assessment plan is required.

Many world-famous multinational companies focus on a brief marketing plan in addition to the following main points:

• Executive Summary: It includes a general overview of the report along with main findings and the main purposes of advertising programs and what impact they can impose on the revenues.
• Goals: This is a vast topic which tells about the mission of the organization, the missions that the team pursues, and what financial goals the organization wants to achieve. It further includes different cash-return objectives and strategies the organization aims to seize through various marketing strategies.
• Marketing Survey: Marketing Survey holds vital importance for an organization. The organization should have a deep insight into the market they will target. This includes different trends related to political, monetary and legitimate being upheld in the market. The organization should have in-depth knowledge in addition to the primary competitors inside that market. Market segmentation should be studied thoroughly to examine how the market is divided, which will help the startups grow accordingly.
• SWOT Assessment: In this assessment, the strengths and weaknesses of a particular organization are analyzed and studied. Threats that other potential company competitors are also exposed in this segment.
• Marketing Strategies: This includes studying the target market as a whole and then choosing a particular market area to target. The organization’s position inside that specific segment also holds vital importance, and necessary amendments must be made to secure its position in the market.
• Marketing Action Projects: Different advertising techniques are required to execute an advertising plan for the organization with the purpose of achieving its goals and missions through it.
• Budget: This includes keeping the balance between the expense and the profit. It includes the budget used in different marketing techniques to the revenues been generated from these products.
• Contingency Plans: These are the methods to measure the marketing strategies being implemented and the objectives set for these schemes and how well are they able to achieve those goals.

To surpass all the competitors regarding revenue and fame, an organization should arrange its rules and regulations according to its competitors and work around to demoralize its competitors. A good strategy for this should be to concentrate on the weak points of the competitors neglecting the qualities. The organization should then devise some plans to assault against the competitors’ weaknesses to decrease their hold in the markets. This will result in a competitive edge to the organization on other similar companies. Organizations adopt and embrace These procedures to lead the market by seizing it and modifying its activities according to consumer demands.

Differentiation is necessary for capturing market as it will provide an edge to the contenders offering goods with various flavors. To get the competitive advantage from others, different competitors of Pepsi are striving to produce beverages that vary in taste, pleasing the people. Many of these competitors have worked upon the advertising their products through newspapers, magazines or various electric media outlets. There are other sorts of communication strategies being used by these firms including direct communication using email and the internet. Dr. Pepper Snapple Group, Inc has used different means in the United States and other global markets to attract the consumers through the use of different innovative, creative marketing ideas and engaging people with different awareness programs. They have also expanded in other countries, increasing the likelihood of seizing other small start-ups in food production to become the world’s most preferred beverage producer. They have lowered their prices to attract people with that strategy. Each organization has a marketing team whose primary purpose is to devise a proper plan according to the analysis of the marketing segment that the organization will target effectively. This will result in capturing the market efficiently and more efficiently by using goods modified according to consumer demands in that segment.

Still, these organizations need to overcome a lot of hurdles to reach the dominant production forces in this field, such as Pepsi and Coca-Cola. They are striving hard to amend their policies and rules that reflect the marketing strategies of these bigger companies. They are doing this by giving an innovative touch to their objectives corresponding to that of Pepsi and Coca-Cola. The best competitive advantage many firms achieve is giving your marketing strategy a taste of culture. A blend of culture with a complex network of bottlers will help a company succeed. Dr. Pepper Snapple Group, Inc is investing to seize large network channels to increase their distribution channel. Many bottlers have the right of distribution within some territories. Thus, due to their regional strengths, many of the bottles become the largest distributors for these brands. They have spent millions of dollars in advertising their goods, hence sustaining their position in the U.S. market.

Coca-Cola has been Pepsi’s major rival for several decades. Coca-Cola is struggling to seek popularity among the consumers of every age by increasing the production and innovation in its products, resulting in the growth of the capital. This innovation is done by differentiating the products from other products that are currently in the market. Unlike Pepsi, Coca-Cola has spread its full support to engage consumers to purchase Coke in different functions as a token of friendship. The clientele of Coca-Cola builds up a devotion to the brand and what it intends for them. For this, the brand uses this loyalty to make one-of-a-kind and innovative advertising ads to mix up the feelings that purchasers once had while enjoying this Coke product.

Further, they have given a slight innovation to their bottles by providing them customized titles so as to engage people more. Though Pepsi is doing its best to invest more in advertisements, it needs to bring some innovation in the taste by increasing the sugar amount in the soft drinks or rousing the attention of clientele to buy their products. This campaign initiated by Coca-Cola is termed as “Share a Coke” Campaign by customizing bottles. Coca-Cola is the leader in foundation accounts along with famous, renowned brand in beverages. It has a firm hold in emerging markets of superpowers like the USA, Canada, and Russia. Coca-Cola Company is always trying to innovate in the advertisement for their soft drinks to seize consumers, permanently making them loyal to their organization. Many of the consumers are loyal to their drinks, hence becoming the reason for the majority of the revenue generated. The Coca-Cola Company achieved their massive popularity in the world through involvement in popular sports games like Olympics and FIFA World Cup. They sponsor these events to gain fame among consumers. Numerous ads are being published during the intervals on television and radio with radio being a cheaper advertisement source.

Pepsi should look for the weaknesses of Coca-Cola and try to indulge in launching different significant campaigns reflecting the needs of consumers. They should grab the extensive distant network of bottlers and engage them by giving capital to the low bottlers. These low bottlers will later become vital for large firms. Pepsi should change its policies regarding the use of calories in beverages. Many of the citizens of the USA were obese and overweight. Michelle Obama was the first lady to take some firm steps regarding the content of calories used in these beverages. Pepsi overcomes this obstacle by selling lower-calorie soft drinks. Many new actions should be proposed to engage the employees of the firm to take part in the organization by giving innovative ideas and refreshing their minds. Pepsi ensures that they are giving an opportunity for people to explore current ideas regarding the production of goods or any start-ups. The best idea was to be given a couple of awards and a meeting with the CEO to pursue the idea further in the implementation stage.

The demand of Coke is higher than Pepsi which leads to increase in production and revenue.

The primary reason is the lack of market analysis from the Pepsi community. Coke has spread its extensive network of social sites and has more followers than the Pepsi. Their taste of soft drinks according to each market segment differs, and they always work on improving the quality of beverages. They have participated in different major events, sponsoring them and selling their products at lower prices where there are more consumers.

Pepsi should try to adopt such practices to sustain its position in the market and become the leading beverage-selling organization in the market on a global scale compared to Coca-Cola. It should devise some plans to improve marketing strategies. Pepsi should customize its bottles and engage bottles by giving them different allowances and capital. There’s always been a race among both competitors, and Pepsi is striving hard to restore the position that Coca-Cola has taken in the past couple of years.

References

A Comprehensive Marketing Plan | Achieve marketing strategies & objectives |Entrepreneur’s Toolkit. (2017). MaRS. Retrieved 18 April 2017, from https://www.marsdd.com/mars-library/a-comprehensive-marketing-plan-to-achieve-marketing-strategies-and-objectives/

Khan, A. (2017). Pepsi marketing report. Academia.edu. Retrieved 18 April 2017, from http://www.academia.edu/5275047/Pepsi_marketing_report

The Pepsi Refresh Project: A Thirst For Change. (2013). Retrieved 18 April 2017, from https://hbr.org/product/the-pepsi-refresh-project-a-thirst-for…/512018-PDF-ENG

What are Dr. Pepper Snapple’s growth strategies? – Market Realist. (2017). Marketrealist.com. Retrieved 18 April 2017, from http://marketrealist.com/2014/12/dr-pepper-snapples-growth-strategies/