Case Study: Introducing New Coke

Date: February 13, 2007 By Pham Thi Thuy Ha

Ecosystem Map for Classic Coke

· Distributors include restaurant chains and food service distributors.

· Sellers are department stores, convenience stores, retailers, dealers who sell products to customers.

· means that competitors try to gain market share by staying relevant to customers’ changing tastes and preferences. Pepsi, the biggest competitor, has a competitive advantage of staying relevant to customers’ taste while relevance is not the competitive advantage of Classic Coke.

· In this map, Coca-Cola produces and sells concentrates to distributors and bottlers with the rights to bottle and distribute finished Coke products to customers. Coca-Cola interacts directly with customers to provide them with customer services and information. Customers interact with Coca-Cola in the form of brand loyalty and brand passion.

SEED question

How Cola-Cola improve customers’ brand loyalty and passion to Coca-Cola’s products?

Key Drivers

Customers, Cola-Cola’s marketing expertise and the market are key drivers.

Competitive advantage

· Internal competitive advantage is the formulation of Classic Coke that customers have been experiencing for a long time. This formulation is the unique taste that no competitor can copy or imitate.

· Brand name is another competitive advantage for Classic Coke because Coke’s customers are very loyal to the brand and they have extremely strong emotional attachment to the brand name. The brand has created a strong passion that roots firmly in Coke’ customers’ minds that no competitors can succeed in encouraging these customers to switch to their brand.