Pepsi’s Growth and Marketing Strategies

INTRODUCTION

Pepsi-Cola Pepsi's beverage business was founded by a pharmacist named

Caleb Bradham who created a special beverage, a soft drink, in the

back room of his drug store in New Bern, North Carolina (Pepsi Co,

2004). It has become one of today’s leading soft drink with nearly $20

billion in worldwide retail sales (PepsiCo Inc., 2003), and like what

coke has, Pepsi also has a variety of products in the world, such as

Pepsi-Cola, diet Pepsi, Pepsi max, mountain dew and so forth.

In this report, we will specifically focus on Pepsi-Cola, and the aim

of this report is to summarize and analyse Pepsi’s growth strategy as

well as its marketing strategies.

Firstly, the background of Pepsi Company and their products will be

summarized.

Secondly, four elements or components will be analysed in this report,

which are based on:

* Product

* Price

* Place

* Promotion

Finally, some recommendations relative to Pepsi’s marketing strategy

will be suggested.

In order to make the information of this report accurate and forceful,

several valuable sources were used to analyse. Those sources

including:

* Marketing textbook

* Academic paper

* Internet

* Online business magazines

BACKGROUND

Pepsi Co. is a Multinational corporation, which extends over many

countries; Pepsi and Frito-Lay merged in 1960, which named the new

company Pepsi Co. Besides, Pepsi Co. has merged with some other

companies such as Gatorade, which became the world’s fifth-largest

food and beverage company with 15 brands.

The company operates in a monopolistically competitive market, where

its biggest competitor is Coca-Cola. Pepsi brand name and its

strategic message ‘it’s the cola’ have already penetrated the world

market. In this case the brand name ‘Pepsi’ is very effective in

differentiating its product from the others. Within the soft drink

industry Pepsi is considered to be a middle class drink and Pepsi

offers quality product that provides assurance to the public.

Pepsi is undertaking both advertising and marketing campaigns around

the world, its advertising campaign include TV, magazines, in-stores,

outdoors and on the Internet. The marketing campaigns it undertook

include lucky draw and promotions. For example in Singapore there is a

promotion done by Pepsi that for every 6-pack of Pepsi you purchase

you can have a turn on the fortune wheel to win prizes such as Pepsi

t-shirt, more Pepsi drinks and cash prizes. This is done when the

economy is in recession and Pepsi is trying to boost up its company

and product image.

Pepsi’s target market has usually been the middle-income family, as

Pepsi is not as expensive as Coke and not as cheap as the other

brands. Pepsi around the world usually target toward young people

early teens to late twenties, however this is still based on location