Coca Cola Crisis Essay

1. Coca-Cola: An Introduction

1.1 History

The history of Coca-Cola began in 1886 when a pharmacist from Atlanta, Dr. John S. Pemberton created a different soft drink through his curious experiments. He created a flavoured syrup which was then mixed with carbonated water at a neighbourhood pharmacy shop. This drink was sold at soda fountains as a patent medicine for five cents a glass. It gained huge popularity in the Unites States due to a common belief that carbonated water was good for health. Pemberton’s claim that Coca-Cola cured many diseases like addiction to morphine, headache also led to an increase in sales. Coca-Cola made an average sales of nine servings per day in Atlanta.

1.2 Growth and Marketing techniques

Coca-Cola famously known as Coke has grown several times since then and

Coca-Cola Crisis in India

Any company or organisation can face a crisis-internal or external at any point. It can not predict the crisis or the issue, but it can prepare for it and reduce its outcomes by effective communication.

Coca-Cola has faced several crisis in India in the past including the one in 2003 where the Coca-Cola soft drink was found to contain pesticide residues. These pesticides were potential to cause serious diseases like cancer and damage to nervous,reproductive and the immune system. Immediate action was taken by Coca-Cola and aggressive advertising was undertaken. Coke launched a stream of advertisements with famous Bollywood and cricket stars to promote the brand.

2.1 Crisis in 2014: Bottling plant got shut down

Yet Coca-Cola faced another crisis in 2014 when one of the bottling plants of Coca-Cola located in Mehdiganj, a village near Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh was shut down owing to an order from the Uttar Pradesh Pollution Control Board (UPPCB). The plant was shut down after 11 years of protest by the local residents and farmers. The UPPCB found Coke to be violating various a number of conditions as in its license and hence issued the