Principles of marketing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words - 1

Principles of marketing - Essay Example Sprite is a product of Coca Cola, and therefore, it is necessary to introduce the company briefly. The Coca Cola Company came into existence in 1886 in Atlanta, Georgia. Since then it has grown to become one of the most popular names in the beverage market around the world. Presently, Coca Cola operates in more than 195 countries around the world. It has more than 30,000 employees working for its different SBU’s worldwide. One of the greatest strength of Coca Cola is its worldwide presence and excellent planning. The unique feature of Coca Cola is that they do not act like a MNC; they do business locally (The Coca Cola Company, 2012). Coca Cola have standardised their core product. They focus on the fact that the drink should taste the same in all the parts of the world. The statistics clearly signifies that Coca Cola’s strategies are following the right path leading to their production and licensing of about 3,500 drinks in more than 200 countries. Sprite is one of the highly acclaimed products of the company. However, in this study, the focus would be on Coca Cola’s operations in the Middle-East countries (Kotler, Armstrong, and Wong, 2008). This report will contain some of the important keywords, and those are defined below. Segmentation: - Segmentation is a strategy or process by which companies define and subdivide a large market into small and identifiable market segments having identical wants, needs and demand characteristics (McDonald and Dunbar, 1995). Marketing Mix: - Marketing Mix is defined as the premeditated mix of the marketing elements, which are commonly the product, price, place and promotion. These four elements of the marketing mix are tailored until the right combination is discovered that fulfils the demands of consumers and generates optimum profit for the company. 2.0 Features of Segmentation Market segmentation is often referred to as a marketing strategy which involves division or dissection of the broader market into small segments of market. The division is done on the basis of the common needs of consumers. Once the intended market is segmented, companies generally formulate and implement strategies to fulfil the needs and desires of each segment. Market segmentation also encourages companies to make product differentiation and employ different media channels to target the different segment of customers. Furthermore, it greatly helps companies to design appropriate marketing mix for each segment (Jobber and Fay, 2006). In this muddled and tumultuous business environment, organisations are compelled to make market segmentation, as it is difficult to target the entire market with the same strategy. Furthermore, the shifting need of consumers is also another driver for the companies to employ segmentation strategy. Similarly, these factors also forced Coca Cola to segment their market for Sprite. Since the product is soft drinks, the company made the segmentation of the market very intellige ntly. Sprite was intended for the mass and not for any particular segment of customers. It was displayed as a brand which was in the business of quenching thirst and refreshing people around