Coca-Cola sales fizz as brand focuses on quality rather than quantity of its marketing
Coca-Cola’s CEO Muhtar Kent has credited the company’s ‘Taste the Feeling’ campaign as an example of how the business is transforming to be “faster” and how its marketing team is fueling its growth.
Speaking on a conference call today (9 February) to discuss the company’s full-year earnings, Kent said the company is still in the process of transitioning to be more focused on building strong brands and enhancing its customer relations.
The brand’s results show that while net revenue declined 4% in 2015, global volume sales were up 2% for the full year. Coca-Cola and Coca-Cola Zero saw 1% and 7% growth in volume sales, but Diet Coke sales declined 5%.
Kent said while much of the company’s transformation has been based around the quantity of marketing, improving the quality of its marketing is just as critical – which is why he is “particularly pleased” with the company’s ‘Taste the Feeling’ campaign.
“It’s not just a new global campaign, but a new business approach. It’s the first to cover all the existing brands within our portfolio and celebrates the product as well as the brand,” he said.
He added that the campaign is also an example of how the business has changed since it put a new five-point growth strategy in place in 2014.
“We’ve gone back to our roots, featuring our product at the heart of the creative where people are enjoying simple pleasures. The campaign is an example of how we have transformed to be faster, building it end to end from the start and supporting across the entire globe. This discipline as well as our talented marketing teams continue to fuel our growth,” he explains.
Kent recognises, however, that the company still has more to do if it wants to achieve top line growth.
He concludes: We still have much more work to do, but we have a clear plan and path to transform the company, thereby giving us greater confidence to grow.”
