INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATION 1

Coca-Cola’s Integrated Marketing Communication Strategy

Introduction

An integrated marketing campaign combines several channels like email, content advertising,
social media, and display advertising to communicate a consistent message to an audience. The
main goal of this marketing approach is to convert the audience into customers, and companies
use multiple channels to gain access to people in different geographical locations. Every industry
is unique in that the way integrated marketing is used in sales differs. The main advantage that
the integrated marketing option has over a single advertising channel is that it can reach a much
wider audience, translating to greater profit margins for the organisation. Integrated campaigns
are effective in balancing short-term and long-term brand development. However, the company
must ensure that it invests in all the touchpoints to fully realize the value of IMC and maximize
its profitability from the same. Although not all brands have embraced this approach, brands use
IMC when looking to create a positive first impression or raise awareness about a product launch
where firms use different levels of the campaign to communicate a message. This paper will
examine the integrated marketing communications campaign used by Coca-Cola during
Christmas in the UK. Coca-Cola is one of the global companies that has developed a very
aggressive marketing campaign over the years, incorporating the use of different channels like
TV, banners, social media, and direct marketing. The next section will provide an overview of
the specific campaign that will be the focus of this analysis. After that, the paper will examine
the tools and channels that Coca-Cola uses in IMC. The final section will be a critical analysis of
the effectiveness and aims of the campaign based on IMC theories.

Coca-Cola’s IMC Overview

In 2019, Coca-Cola launched its biggest Christmas campaign with the largest media spend as it
focused on relaying the traditional Christmas message on a global level. In the UK, the company
ran its ‘Holidays Are Coming’ TV ad that featured the same visuals and music that it had used in
the previous years but incorporated some new scenes that were aligned to the traditions. The
campaign ran across all media channels including digital, outdoor and social media, and
incorporated several new partnerships intending to improve the efficiency of the campaigns.
There were several activations including karaoke takeovers of the Piccadilly Lights and live
streaming of Christmas songs for 90 minutes. There was also a choir that encouraged a festive
 INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATION 2

public singalong in various store locations. The social media aspect of the campaign involved a
partnership with the Snapchat lens to drive engagement, as well as a partnership with Waze (a
navigation app) which involved Santa giving directions and helping people to find the nearest
place to purchase a Coca-Cola.

The campaign incorporated the biggest elements that people loved and introduced new ideas to
improve its delivery in ways that both the existing and new fans would appreciate. The
campaign’s main goal was to re-introduce Coca-Cola’s limited-edition zero sugar cinnamon. To
do so, the company took over Oxford Circus station and made it more cinnamon-scented.
Meanwhile, at Winter Wonderland, the company set up a cinnamon-inspired igloo experience for
the customers and brought back the Coca-Cola Christmas truck. The campaign began on 15th
November whereby the truck visited over 19 locations in the UK, offering samples to customers
and homeless people. In December, the company launched the global leg of the campaign
intending to remind people that there is more that unites human beings than what divides us. The
local UK campaign was concluded just after Christmas.

Tools and Channels used in Coca-Cola’s IMC

The main tools that will be examined in this analysis are advertising and public relations
activities. Advertising is one of the most common approaches to marketing communication and
brand promotion. According to Moriarty et al (2012), advertising helps the organisation to reach
a wider audience within a limited time frame. There are several channels used in advertising and
they include television, newspapers, billboards, and radio, and they are crucial in communicating
with the end-user and assuring them of the brand’s quality, and motivating them to buy the
products and remain loyal to the brand. Advertisements not only increase the rate of
consumption but also improve the level of brand awareness which is another aim of the IMC
process (Dai, 2021). Coca-Cola has relied on advertising as the main tool for IMC because it
gives the company a chance to create a message that will reach the right customers within the
ideal time. For advertising, Coca-Cola has used tv-broadcasted ad campaigns which have been
the primary channel of communication between the customers and the company since its
inception.

Public relations in IMC marketing involved brand promotion through a mixture of offline and
online activities aimed at increasing interaction between potential customers and the
 INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATION 3

organisation. Social media marketing campaigns are an industry benchmark, used by global
companies to reach out to international as well as local customers. The Snapchat campaign gave
Coca-Cola a chance to engage directly with the customers online, while the product placement
tours, as well as offline events, increased the engagement of customers in different UK locations.
The AIDA model claims that brands can have a positive presence in the customer’s choices
through memory recognition. The AIDA process can guide marketers on how to target a
customer market effectively. As the organisation moves through each step, a percentage of the
initial prospects is lost after the initial mission of attracting the audience is achieved (Orazi et
al.,2017). The focus of IMC is mostly to attract the attention of the customers, and this means
that the IMC strategy must be effective and very strategic.

Effectiveness of the IMC Campaign

Coca-Cola advertising has been one of the most prolific processes in history and as Dai (2021)
claims, the company’s ad campaigns throughout its one hundred twenty-nine-year history have
had a major impact on society as well as the culture. The logo and bottle design are recognizable
all over the world and have been integrated into the company’s brand image. Also, Coca-Cola
has been ranked number 1 repeatedly in the rankings of soft drinks owing to the firm’s
aggressive advertising campaign. Coca-Cola has managed to keep pace with the desires of the
different customer markets through targeted advertising. As Reed, Goolsby and Johnston (2016)
claim, it is only after evaluating the customer desires that the marketers can create an effective
IMC campaign and encourage customers to purchase the said product. Analysis of the
effectiveness of advertising using the marketing mix shows how effective Coca-Cola’s IMC
campaign is. The first segment is the product which incorporates the product’s quality into the
brand image and the features. It is important to incorporate factual information about the product
or service for legal and ethical reasons, and the ad should remain realistic (Einwiller and
Boenigk, 2012). For Coca-Cola, this was easily attainable because the company has a pre-
existing brand associated with quality. Also, the limited-edition zero sugar cinnamon had been
sold the previous year, thus there was some level of pre-existing awareness within the market.
However, Coca-Cola did not focus on the price aspect of the marketing process and instead
wanted to give customers an experience that would spark their interest. This is in line with the
AIDA concept which stipulates that the second aspect of effective marketing communication is
 INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATION 4

the customers’ interest (Rehman et al., 2014). For Coca-Cola, the main source of interest was the
experience that the company created through advertisement.

The location of the ads played a critical role in the success of the campaign, as well as the
development of consumer action and desire in the AIDA model. The company chose to advertise
through public relations by collaborating with partners and creating memorable experiences for
the customers. This is evidenced by the use of choirs that sing Christmas carols and the
consistency of the message and its delivery with the campaigns in the previous year. The place
aspect in the marketing mix focuses on the location as well as the distribution channels because
the choice in digital marketing communications, as well as traditional methods of advertisement,
can augment the promotional aspect of the campaign (Mihart, 2012). The use of web-based
processes to show customers where they can buy a coke as well as the input from Snapchat
where the customers could create their personal experiences and share them with their social
groups. As Orazi et al (2017) recount, Coca-Cola has incorporated crowdfunding as one of the
main approaches for advertising its products, and this has been through targeting specific
consumer markets. For example, the use of the truck and the choir were aimed at attracting
families, while the digital marketing processes would target the younger and more tech-savvy
population. Rehman and Ibrahim (2011) point out that this makes it easier for the brand to sell to
important clients especially in specific areas, thus contributing to a personalized experience that
cultivates loyalty.

Web-based and social media marketing campaigns are effective for Coca-Cola because the brand
is universally recognized. This means that the company does not necessarily have to build an
audience first because it can get instant brand engagement online. According to
Muhammedrisaevna, Bayazovna and Kakhramonovna (2020), different tactics can be used on
social media, but it is possible to maintain a unified message. In the case of Coca-Cola, the
company combined Christmas carols with an online customer engagement session on Snapchat.
Moreover, the firm implemented web-based services to attract tech-savvy customers. Web-based
interactive marketing should focus on functionality and design and this relies mainly on
crowdsourcing which achieves effective content creation (Wu and Li, 2018). The combined IMC
elements have proven to be lucrative to Coca-Cola, with the company’s revenues increasing by
forty-six billion USD, with a profit margin of 15.43%, and the company’s shares being sold at
 INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATION 5

six dollars and ninety-five cents (Dai, 2021). The annual sales in the global context surpassed
forty-six billion, making Coca-Cola the fourth most valuable brand in the entire world.

The competence of the different components of the IMC shows that it is possible to achieve
excellence using a single marketing campaign. The achievement can also be examined using
several media metrics like the sum of total audience attained using specific outlets, advertising
equivalency, and statistical figures. In terms of market statistics, Coca-Cola has become the
market leader of the UK beverage sector. Moreover, other unique factors like the number of site
visits and search engine results are in the billions on different search engines point to the
efficiency of the combined IMC effort. One of the main weaknesses of Coca-Cola’s IMC
approach is that it is costly to actualize. As Valos et al (2017) claim, the IMC processes
incorporate several activities that are conducted at the same time, and it would be unjust to
advertise costs on the different platforms used in the marketing process. There is a likelihood that
advertising makes the products even more expensive, especially since the company was
promoting limited-edition drinks which the customers were less likely to protest.

Several factors come into play in determining the effectiveness of IMC strategies in marketing.
Coca-Cola has an advantage since it uses several different channels, and this makes it easier to
target specific customer groups during the marketing process. Development of the IMC should
be dictated by the reference group which as Krivokuća (2020) claims, is an individual or a group
of people who are the source of influence for a group in the society. Thus, the marketing process
must reflect the needs, attitudes, values, behaviours, and norms that the group is likely to
consider important and an emotional trigger that stimulates the purchasing behaviour. The
pricing of the product, as well as the purchasing aspect, depends on the social class to which the
individual belongs, as this will predict their position in the marketplace. Luckily, Coca-Cola sells
all its products at affordable prices, in that customers from different socioeconomic classes can
afford the same. This makes it easier to segment customers into different categories which are
useful in the further development of IMC programs. Another aspect that is crucial in the success
of the IMC is the culture which is essential in the creation and delivery of the appropriate
message (Pisicchio and Toaldo, 2020). Under this concept, the IMC must accurately represent
the values of the customers to capture their attention and appeal to their emotional selves. The
 INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATION 6

challenge for the marketer is to determine the beliefs and customs that are shared by the
members of the group and incorporate them into desirable aspects during the campaign.

The results of the marketing process can be determined by the efforts that the organisation places
in designing the IMC process. Companies must provide external stimuli including the packaging,
price, quality, brand, and emotional attributes of the products. The key goal of the
communication message is to influence the decisions that the customers make in selecting and
purchasing the products (Pisicchio and Toaldo, 2020). However, one of the main challenges of
designing the IMC process is by incorporating a message that appeals to all the different types of
customers including the rational and emotional type. According to Stankevich (2017), the
customer purchasing process involves establishing a need, conducting research, and selecting the
product amongst existing substitutes. There are also sociological factors that affect the decisions
that the customer makes concerning the new products and making decisions on how best they
can derive utility from the same. The tools used in IMC including advertising, direct marketing,
and public relations can represent the most ideal approaches for ensuring that the
communicational messages reach the right audiences, provided it addresses the potential
customers and creates a reputation of the organisation. Ultimately, Coca-Cola’s IMC is effective
because of the company’s experience in creating ad campaigns and tapping into the emotional
and rational consumer markets.

Conclusion

Coca-Cola is a well-known brand that has developed a reputation internationally and remains
one of the leading global brands in the beverage sector. Nonetheless, the company still relies on
IMC to achieve its sales goals, and develop a closer relationship with its customers as well as
potential customers. The company created an IMC in Christmas 2019 to target the UK market, as
well as the customers on a global scale. The IMC had several components including both offline
and online customers, and incorporating a wide variety of customer experiences. The offline
mode mainly involved the use of public relations through holding events and choirs that would
culminate in direct selling. The company also advertised its Christmas message via the TV
advert, ensuring that the ad remained as it had been the previous year. On the online front, the
company teamed up with Snapchat to give users the power to collaborate and create content. The
IMC process was highly effective because not only did the profitability of the organisation
 INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATION 7

improve, it also increased the engagement between the organisation and its customers. However,
the IMC also has its disadvantages such as the cost of implementing the different marketing
strategies. Overall, Coca-Cola has had a successful IMC in the UK, and the company continues
to collect information that is crucial for its further development.
 INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATION 8

References

Dai, Y., 2021, March. Comparison of Emphasis Point Towards Marketing Strategies Between
Pepsi & Coca-Cola. In 6th International Conference on Financial Innovation and
Economic Development (ICFIED 2021) (pp. 79-83). Atlantis Press.

Einwiller, S.A. and Boenigk, M., 2012. Examining the link between integrated communication
management and communication effectiveness in medium-sized enterprises. Journal of
Marketing Communications, 18(5), pp.335-361.

Krivokuća, M., 2020. Social responsibility in the application of integrated marketing

Mihart, C., 2012. Modelling the influence of integrated marketing communication on consumer
behaviour: an approach based on hierarchy of effects concept. Procedia-Social and
Behavioral Sciences, 62, pp.975-980.

Moriarty, S.E., Mitchell, N., Wells, W. and Wood, C., 2012. Advertising & IMC: principles &
practice. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Muhammedrisaevna, T.M.S., Bayazovna, G.N. and Kakhramonovna, D.A., 2020. Goal and
objectives of integrated marketing communications. Economics, (2 (45)).

Orazi, D.C., Spry, A., Theilacker, M.N. and Vredenburg, J., 2017. A multi-stakeholder IMC
framework for networked brand identity. European Journal of Marketing.

Pisicchio, A.C. and Toaldo, A.M.M., 2020. Integrated marketing communication in hospitality
SMEs: analyzing the antecedent role of innovation orientation and the effect on market
performance. Journal of Marketing Communications, pp.1-20.

Reed, K., Goolsby, J.R. and Johnston, M.K., 2016. Listening in and out: Listening to customers
and employees to strengthen an integrated market-oriented system. Journal of Business
Research, 69(9), pp.3591-3599.

Rehman, F.U., Nawaz, T., Ilyas, M. and Hyder, S., 2014. A comparative analysis of mobile and
email marketing using AIDA model. Journal of Basic and Applied Scientific
Research, 4(6), pp.38-49.
 INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATION 9

Rehman, S.U. and Ibrahim, M.S., 2011. Integrated marketing communication and
promotion. Researchers World, Journal of Arts, Science & Commerce, International
Refereed Research Journal, 2(4).

Stankevich, A., 2017. Explaining the consumer decision-making process: Critical literature
review. Journal of International Business Research and Marketing, 2(6).

Valos, M.J., Maplestone, V.L., Polonsky, M.J. and Ewing, M., 2017. Integrating social media
within an integrated marketing communication decision-making framework. Journal of
Marketing Management, 33(17-18), pp.1522-1558.

Wu, Y.L. and Li, E.Y., 2018. Marketing mix, customer value, and customer loyalty in social
commerce: A stimulus-organism-response perspective. Internet Research.