Pepsi’s Growth and Marketing Strategies :: GCSE Business Management Studies

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