Introduction
Businesses in all sectors experience a broad technological transition from the company level, employees, customers, and society. Increased and fair market competition, rapid development cycle, fragment business model, and other essential factors accentuate the accelerating essential role of business technology and automation. Business technology is a trending necessity, which is evident in the daily market transaction (Ciobanu and Neamţu, 2017). Additionally, technology paves the way for innovation which promotes efficient trading. Therefore, business success relies strongly on optimal utilization of technology. Social media occupies a significant percentage of global business marketing; it is becoming successful in advertisements and changing modes of transaction in contemporary world.
Business technology engulfs all technologies which are essential in the smooth business running and operational process. The technology can be business-critical production and logistics solutions, office financial systems, or customer-facing application and solutions, among others. The Beat’s move is an element of digital trade; it describes Coca-Cola’s promotion campaign through ads and tracks Beat which actively involves teens. The campaign considered five vital elements: The Beat TV, TV comments, a feature-length documentary, the song, and a series of mobile apps known as ‘The Global Beat’ (Dawar and Bagga, 2015). The Beat technological movement is made possible through television and other global media broadcasts. The song creation was captured in a feature-length documentary, and it was to provide mobile soundtracks and Coca-Cola events during the London 2012 Olympic Games. Generally, the campaign aims to revive the Olympics games by engaging teens; this, in a way, promotes digital trade, which is essential in the current era.
Significance of mobile marketing for brands
Mobile marketing is a multi-channel digital marketing plan intended to reach a specific audience on their computers and other mobile devices through social media, websites, Short Message Service, Multimedia Messaging Service, emails, and apps. Currently, customers are shifting their attention and transactions to online platforms. Markets are taking advantage of this advancement to achieve and maintain Omnichannel involvement (Ciobanu and Neamţu, 2017). Marketing and technology are concurrently becoming more fragmented; firms and companies are striving to strategically and highly personalize content to earn and maintain potential customers. Effective digital transformation is not simply a matter of updating technology solutions. A firm needs to strategize its operational ways to instantiate new business and position itself at the top. Organizations need to effectively implement an updated skill set, redesign progress, and adopt new digital solutions.
Consequently, many studies from the global research institutions reveal transition of organization to digital economy as they believe it has positive impact on their transactions. Technology can significantly impact business operations irrespective of the company’s size. It can bring many benefits which can help a company to increase its revenue and produce goods as per the customers’ taste. The primary role of technology is to catalyze business growth and upgrade operations; therefore, companies will fail to achieve the intended goals without adopting modern technology such as mobile marketing. Different firms and companies depend on technology because it optimizes production, financial record keeping, inventory management, and business communication. Currently, tablets and smartphones have become the essential tool in the contemporary business society. This makes mobile marketing one of the fastest ways of reaching the target audience. Therefore, with an increase in digital marketing, mobile advertising maintains the top rank for professional investors and upcoming businesses. With the capability to facilitate engagement, increase brand awareness, and generate sales, mobile marketing can significantly transform the performance of both start-up and existing business. As many companies record significant growth, it is instrumental to understand the present digital landscape in business fields.
Mobile marketing makes it easy to connect with the target market and customers. More people use tablets and cellphones to access the internet compared to desktops and other stationary computers. Recently, the use of mobile phones has highly increased globally. This makes it easy for traders to connect with their customers regardless of the products or services offered, or their geographical location. Furthermore, the technological trend also increases trading engagement for various businesses. Wi-Fi and cellular data accessibility create a surge in the range of business content which is conveyed through mobile marketing. High-resolution images and videos applied in digital platforms are visually appealing and they attract many clients. However, poor internet connections in some regions reduce the effectiveness of the product promotion using the technology. Additionally, mobile marketing is the best way of achieving a better brand loyalty. For instance, launching a branded app gives a direct way to direct mobile marketing content. The app can process sales and reward customer loyalty, and influence users to make repeated transactions.
Brand examples of successful mobile marketing campaigns include Pepsi: the “Is Pepsi OK?” campaign and the Nike: The “Just Do It” campaign. Pepsi is the most threatening competitor for Coca-Cola in the beverage industry. Pepsi extensively uses celebrity endorsements in advertisements to promote its products effectively. On the hand, the “Just Do It” promotion played an instrumental role in the sales of Nike products when they adopted it. The two companies realized extraordinary profits because they understood and strategically applied the successful marketing campaign steps. These steps consist of objective and goal definition, setting a budget, defining the target audience, creating and designing marketing content, and choosing campaign medium and channel. The above steps will result in a prudent business yield for any company if they are effectively undertaken.
Advantages and Challenges of Coca-Cola’s Move to the Beat Campaign
Coca-Cola is the largest global beverage industry with a strong brand image. Despite global popularity and other advantages, Coca-Cola experiences challenges in its digital operation since brands such as Pepsi are competing with it in the global market. The strength and the success of a company are seen when it can survive amidst market challenges. However, for successful growth, the company has to display more strengths than weaknesses (Dawar and Bagga, 2015). In our case, the London 2012 Olympics Games sponsor, Coca-Cola, extensively used the core teen audience to increase global awareness and sales. The company achieved this by focusing on the interests of the consumers in areas such as music and displaying their social aspect by composing an anthem from the sport sounds.
The Coca-Cola strengths include the strong brand image, large market share, high customer loyalty, strong brand portfolio, extensive distribution network, marketing and advertising investment, high company valuation. The essential Coca-Cola strength is the brand image and awareness, which is also a significant advantage in the Beat campaign. The brand is available globally and enjoys tremendous popularity. Through the digital campaign and robust distribution network, the company achieved rapid global growth (Dawar and Bagga, 2015). Coca-Cola managed to reach its customers and lure more people through customer motivation programs. This influenced more people to consider purchasing more Coca-Cola products for greater rewards. The effective campaign catalyzed many consumes’ choice and preferences which promoted a competitive advantage in the industry. The company continues to make significant investments in advertisement, marketing, and customer engagement. It also gains publicity through its sponsorships and other programs. These are some of the reasons for the success of Cola, hence its sustainability.
Weaknesses and challenges are the key determinants of the company’s growth. Like any other brand, Coca-Cola has some weaknesses and experiences various global challenges in its operations and product promotion. The company’s primary challenge is competitive pressure from rival brand Pepsi, which leads to other weaknesses like low productive diversification, currency fluctuation, water management issue, and law presence in health drinks. The competitive pressure in the beverage industry has continued to rise. However, Coca-Cola has not made any significant strategic improvement to win the competition (Dawar and Bagga, 2015). In comparison, Pepsi strives to apply new strategies based on Coca-Cola weaknesses. Coca-Cola maintains significant opportunities in the emerging market, such as product diversification, packaged water, and growing market opportunities which still have it as a significant economic brand.
Additionally, the Localization approach by the company was instrumental in the Coca-Cola campaign execution. The majority world’s population is youthful, thus, meeting their needs has been a significant strategy for the company which has enabled it to rise to greater levels (Coca-Cola: move to the beat, 2012). Furthermore, youths are the most active members of society, therefore, their contribution in the success of the Beat campaign was imminent. The company has mainly used localized strategies to meet the regional and cultural needs between different world regions.
The Coca-Cola Beat campaign brand values
Brand values are the main ideas, standards, or principle of behavior which the brand reflects. As displayed in the video, the brand marketing strategy is composed of two elements: global accessibility, affordable prices, and excellent customer connection. The company’s brand-building capabilities revolve around abiding principles such as human epicenter, focusing on the basics, including transparency on the occasion, price, brand, and execution brand (Coca-Cola: move to the beat, 2012). The ultimate goal of the brand values is to increase the brand weakly consumption rate. Campaigns are a vital part of the Coca-Cola marketing industry. The video adverts effectively use young people to promote and market values by exhausting their customers’ different geographical needs.
The stiff competition between Pepsi and Coca-Cola beverage in the industry is massive. Coca-Cola has mainly positioned itself as the youth brand, which is evident in its online ads and printed adverts. It also strives to maintain a one global brand principle by bringing all its products together in one ad. The ‘Taste the Feeling’ slogan is intended to connect with the millennium era and its emotions (Coca-Cola: move to the beat, 2012). Additionally, the video ad is also effective because it is customer-oriented. Making the customers engaged needs a strategic approach which will effectively strengthen Coca-Cola global presence. This is effectively displayed in the ad strategy, which helps bolster its identity to the youth.
Coca-Cola’s Strategy Global Brand Positioning and Brand Management
The products of Coca-Cola Company have proved to be a source of inspiration and happiness and they have added significant impact in the lives of the customer. The brand is geared towards customer needs and satisfaction. Coca-Cola, the world largest beverage company, adopted the master brand strategy. It positions itself at the top, which is acceptable since it has exhausted the core elements of the tactical marketing strategic positioning (Dawar and Bagga, 2015). Effective evaluations include defining the target market, market category, customer pains, brand promise, brand identity, and mission. Many companies have used perceptual mapping to understand the consumers’ responses to their brands in market competition. However, these maps’ business values are limited because they fail to link business performance metrics such as pricing and sales with brand market positioning.
Brand mapping position contains a strategic position; companies can generate what-if scenarios for strategies to move a brand along the centrality dimensions. This will help assess how the brand moves would affect trade profitability (Dawar and Bagga, 2015). Companies can develop an association with costs connected to different strategies and the impacts of brand performance’s final position. This is done by mapping the company’s brand position over time.
Conclusion
In summary, technological advancements in the business field are essential in the current era. Regardless of the size of a company, technological advancement has remained a fundamental aspect in the success of business operations. Other than the improved activities, digital enhancement influences the efficiency, relationship, and culture set within a given market. It dramatically affects personal information security and trade advantages (Ciobanu and Neamţu, 2017). Currently, media and other technological trends dominate all aspects of the economy. Effective technology promotes operation efficiency, business culture and class relationships, research capacity, and security. The benefits of effective business digitization are evident in the success of the firms which embrace it maximally. Ads and other social media advertisement are essential in business growth in the current world. Therefore, companies should embrace technological advancements in their fields to enhance their growth and effective market competition.
Reference List
Ciobanu, O. and Neamţu, D. (2017) ‘The impact and importance of new technologies in business development in context of economic diversity’, Proceedings of the International Conference on Business Excellence, 11(1), pp.698-710. doi: 10.1515/picbe-2017-0074
Coca-Cola: move to the beat (2012).
Dawar, N. and Bagga, C. (2015) A Better way to map brand strategy. Harvard Business Review.