National Economics University Advanced Educational Program

Research Report Research title: The effects of marketing mix of Cocacola corporation in Vietnamese market

Teacher: Pham Thi Thanh Thuy, Ph.D Student: Nguyen Van Quan Nguyen Huu Hung Ngo Hung Son Class: Advanced Finance 51A

Introduction I, Background 1. History of Coca-cola Corporation Coca-cola was established in 1886. Since then, it has been winning the attention of thousands of consumers all over the world by its top refreshment brands. They operate in more than 200 countries, have more than 3000 products, and own 4 of the worlds top 5 nonalcoholic outstanding beverage brands. It not only becomes a symbol of the United States but also an important image in many countries with the plan on refreshing the markets, diversifying workplaces, protecting our environment and strengthening public communications. To operating areas, Coca-cola covers the 5 ones, including South America, Latin America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. In Asia, Coca-cola penetrates China, India, Japan, Philippines, Viet Nam, etc. Many brands have been created in the markets with high profile creativeness, such as:

2. History of Vietnamese Coca-cola Corporation Introduced in 1960 and came back in 1994 after the abolition of the U.S trading sanction: 1960: Coca-cola Corporation was first introduced in Viet Nam. February, 1994: Coca-cola Corporation came back to Viet Nam and continued the long-run operation August, 1995: bilateral Trading agreement between Dong Duong coca-cola and Vinafimex company was made with the office in the North. September, 1995: Another trading agreement between Chuong Duong company and coca-cola was made March, 2004: Coca-cola was transferred to Saco There are 3 Vietnamese coca-cola companies responsible for canning: Ha Tay- Da Nang- Ho Chi Minh city January, 1998: One more corporation appeared in Coca-cola Non Nuoc. Thats the final decision on cooperating activity of Dong Duong coca-cola company, carried out by the cooperation with Da Nang sweet beverage company. October, 1998: all corporations belong to Dong Duong coca-cola company. June, 2001: All coca-cola companies integrated into just one company under the administration of Vietnamese Coca-cola Corporation 3. Product highlights: Coca-cola is the world's favorite drink and considered the most valuable brand, and the most recognizable word across as well. Coca-Cola has really dominating heritage. From a humble beginning in1886, it is now the flagship brand of the largest manufacturer, marketer and distributor of non-alcoholic beverages in the world. In India, Coca-Cola was the leading soft-drink

till 1977 when governments policies necessitated its departure. Coca-Cola made its return to the country in 1993 and made significant investments to ensure that the beverage is available to more' and more people, even in the remote and inaccessible parts of the nation. II. Research objectives: We carry out this painstaking research in order to clarify the reason why coca-cola can sustain such strong position in this market segment, given the fact that Pepsi entered Vietnamese market some months before, and this segment has been very competitive with the presence of many other rivals. We rely heavily on the principle of 4 Ps model: Promotion, Price, Product, Place. III. Research question: Our group is going to make a research on The marketing mix of Coca-cola in Vietnamese market. The main research question addressed is By which ways Coca-cola can sustain the dominant market shares against other contributors of sweet beverage, especially Pepsi, the arch-rival of Cocacola. More specifically, we will go into details by breaking down the marketing mix into 4 main sections: product marketing, contribution marketing, promotion and public relation IV. Research Hypothesis: As our first perception before the research, we did mention some hypotheses, from which we can compare to the findings after the whole process ending at the data processing point. They are: People tend to choose their sweet beverages matching with their tastes People tend to choose the sweet beverage whose price level is reasonable

People tend to choose the sweet beverage which pop up as frequent advertisements V. Literature Review: Coca Cola was established in 1886, and through all tough, taxing times and competition, is still one of the first class refreshment brands today. They own 4 of the worlds top 5 nonalcoholic sparkling beverage brands, they operate in more than 200 countries, they serve nearly 1.6 billion consumers a day, and they have more than 3,000 products. (Coca Cola Company, 2009). What are the reasons for the fact that coca-cola has been perceived and applied in the right way to reach such upgrade status, and start using social media? Just some words, simply because theyre smart. Their Coca-Cola mission is to refresh the world, to inspire moments of optimism, and to create value and make a difference. The orientation may be cemented into the umbrella goal towards customers, which is to help the customers favor their moments in life. If not anything else, the steps that Coke has taken this past year should have given them many moments of optimism. In case study presented by Adam Brown of Coca-Cola, he stated, back in the day you would have heard me say, our home page isnt just coke.com, its google.com now its google.com, technorati.com, facebook.com. He also expressed in his presentation that Coca-Colas strategy is to Review, Record, Respond, and Redirect. (Brown, 2009) From the very beginning and promising revolution, Coca-Cola has done an amazing job at not only reaching out to the new media era audience, but also the people who followed them in the past. Coca-Cola has created an official blog called Coca-Cola Conversations which is written and updated by a man by the name of Phil Mooney, who has served as the

historian/archivist for Coca-Cola for the last 30 years. One interesting point is that the small blog contains a wide variety of topics, differing from our role in pop culture to brand history to Coke collectibles. (Mooney, 2009). It reaches out to a wide variety of target audiences, and encourages people to write back and give their input, something Coke probably couldnt have gotten this far without. Besides a blog, Coke also has an individual Twitter page for each product, a Linked In profile, a Facebook Fan page, and their personal widget, CokeTag. CokeTag was released because they believe that connecting people and giving them a way to share what matters is one of the many things that helps define The Coke Side of Life. (CokeTag, 2009). The Facebook fan page was created by two users who liked Coke. What started as a fan page for fun, turned out to be the largest product fan page on Facebook. Coca Cola, instead of taking over the page and making it their own, rewarded the fans by bringing them to Atlanta and giving them a tour of the Coke facility. The fan page remains theirs, but now they have the blessing and help of Coca Cola. By empowering the fans to keep their fan page, Coke ensures a passionate page owner. The Coca Cola marketing team was also smart enough to realize that letting others know what happened here would work in their favor. The fan page creators were told to make a video of the history behind the fan page, and how Coke had reached out to them and rewarded them for this. (Balwani, 2009) Part of the Action Plan for Harnessing the Power of the New Rules states that you should define your organizations goals first, then based on the goals decide whether or not you want to provide the content for free and without registration. It is also stated that you should write for your audience using examples and stories, and of course make it interesting, according to Scott,

2007. Throughout this year, Coke has done an amazing job of launching new items, keeping a close eye on their followers, rewarding those that give them press, and continuing on based on their target audiences reactions. Coke has made this new media campaign come full circle, and they dont seem to be anywhere near done yet.

VI. Methodology: We highly appreciate the effectiveness of our research. In addition, we always face time and energy constraints. Those are the reasons why we did choose the survey approach in which we came directly to each class at the National Economics University to spread out our survey questions sheet and got the primary data after just some minutes. The result is very positive. 150 advanced students did give us the raw data over experience with Coca-cola. The next step is done quickly and accurately with the useful help of SPSS 1.5 software to approach those data about the final information, marking a successful data processing. VII. Structure: Our research report will be closely looked at in a structured expression. 1. Introduction i. ii. iii. iv. v. vi. Background Research objectives Research questions Research hypotheses Literature review Methodology

2. Major findings 3. Conclusions and recommendations 4. Appendix 5. Reference 6. Teachers comments

Major findings Product policies

a. Product quality
60 50 40 30 20 10 0 absolutely quite absolutely quite rarely rarely not at all not at all 10.8 9 29.2 51

In our survey we asked consumer about how they feel about the Coca-Cola products quality and we received the answers categorized in 4 satisfaction levels: absolutely, quite, rarely, not at all. From the bar chart we can see that almost a half of all people interviewed say that they like Coca-Cola product quality. On the other hand, 30% of people interviewed express that Coca-Cola gives them the absolute

satisfaction with its quality. In summary, we have 80% of people interviewed says that they like or very like Coca-Cola quality, it means Coca-Cola is able to provide almost all people with the best satisfactory quality, and it is successful in becoming familiar with peoples daily purchasing habit. Coca-Cola commits to operate in long term in Vietnam and always provide people with the best quality products. b. Product diversification

Fully acknowledging that it cannot survive in the market with only one product, Coca-Cola has developed many products. It does not only operate in drink market comprising canned water, fizzy drink. It has created many types of drink with different labels to satisfy the diversifying need of consumers. It increases the product mix to diversify the risk. The examples of this practice are Coca-Cola, Fanta, Sprite, Minute MaidIt not only focuses on the fizzy drinks but also on the other fruit drinks ,energy-heightening drinks ( Samurai ),fruit powder( Sunfill ) and supplements many new flavors to its traditional products to accommodate for the tastes and liking of Vietnamese people like Fanta lemon, Fanta strawberry, Soda lemon, v.v...This action helps Coca-Cola to compete with rival companies, increase brand loyalties and create many new opportunities for penetrating the market. In a particular type of product, Coca-Cola also creates many versions. For example with the Coca-Cola drink, it creates classic Coca-Cola, diet coke with low sugar for people who want lower-calorie drink, vanilla coke, cherry coke. Coca-Cola commits to operate in long term in Vietnam and always renovates to satisfy the high need of a dynamic and potential market like Vietnam.

The products of Coca-cola in Vietnam market:

Coca-Cola glass bottle,can and plastic bottle Fanta orange - glass bottle,can and plastic bottle Fanta strawberry - glass bottle,can and plastic bottle Fanta fruit - glass bottle,can and plastic bottle Sprite - glass bottle,can and plastic bottle Diet Coke - can Schweppes Tonic - glass bottle, can Schweppes Soda lemon - glass bottle, can and plastic bottle Crush Sarsi - glass bottle, can Canned Drink Joy bottle PET 500 ml and 1500 ml Tonic Drink Samurai - glass bottle, can and powder Sunfill orange fruit powder Sunfill pineapple- fruit powder With regard to the effect of Coca-Cola products diversification, in our survey we asked consumer about how they feel about the Coca-Cola

products diversification and we received the answers categorized in 4 satisfaction levels: excessive, just enough, lack diversification. The result is shown in the pie chart below.

From the chart, we collect the data about how people feel about the diversification of Coca-Cola products, with three levels to categorize: excessive, just enough, lack diversification. The result is surprising. The biggest part of people (54.9%) says that it is just enough to satisfy their need, while almost 30% says that it is excessive. Adding up these numbers together we have about 85% of people feel Coca-Cola is able to supply them what they expect. This proves that Coca-Cola has developed a large enough product mix to satisfy consumers need. However, there is 15,2% of people interviewed says that Coca-Cola lacks diversification. The reason for this is that these people expect more than what Coca-Cola supplies or maybe they get bored with drinking the same types of Coca-Cola products all the time because Coca-Cola has become the biggest supplier in market for drinks. c. Trade mark

Coca-cola has developed its trade mark to be the most prominent trade mark in market for canned drink, which is the dynamic band. A long time ago, people are used to see the red dynamic brand appearing in Coca-Cola product. It is eye-catching enough to create an impression in consumers. In our survey, we ask consumer about: Do you think that the styles and brands of Coca-Cola are eye-catching enough? The result is that 80.3 % of people interviewed says they are very attractive and easily to be recognized. This proves that Coca-Cola has succeed in incorporate the impression in people. It helps Coca-Cola to retain its consumers and making a big comparative advantage to other opponents.

d. Packaging

Most of Coca-cola product use can, bottle to contain and protect its content. It uses can to identify the brand, list the ingredients, specify features and differentiates its product from competing products. Can and bottle make it easy to design label to promote product and influence consumers perception and buying behavior. For example in special occasion like Worldcup, CocaCola used the colorful bubble images with the slogan Worldcup 2010South Africa. Only by using can and bottle, Coca-Cola can adjust its products appearance to some special occasions. Can and bottle are also convenient for consumers to use because it fit with the size of hand. Because consumers are constantly seeking products that are easy to handle, open, close, and retailers prefer packages that are easily to ship, store and stock on shelves, Coca-Cola chooses can, plastic bottle, package of 6 cans or 24 cans to commercialize its products. Last but not least, can and bottle are of great help to recycling. One of the most important packaging issues today is comparability with the

environment .Recently Coca-Cola has just developed a new breakthrough in packaging with the product plant bottle( bottle made of vegetation) This product is made of the mixture of oil and 30% vegetation substances, making it recycled. Moreover, Coca-Cola has also used style modification in order to help consumer use its products more conveniently. Some examples of Coca-Cola are can 330ml,bottle 1.5l,package 330ml(24 cans /package),it also presents the bottle 390ml which is dedicate and convenient in order to satisfy different need of different consumers.

Coca-Cola also presents a unique Fanta fun bottle. This is a young and unique style bringing Fanta the seduction and fashion. The new bottle creates the dynamic and young style of Fanta, which is the feature of youth of Vietnam. Especially, the body of the bottle is designated to the most optimal level

to help consumer feel convenient to handle. The effort of Coca-Cola is to bring Vietnamese people, especially Youth the chance to enjoy the styles which are not only funny, attractive but also convenient and outstanding e. Labelling Each design logo of Coca-Cola has the flexible creation which is suitable for appearing in advertisement, t-shirt and hat, and creates a perfect marketing effect of Coca-Cola. It has just received the platinum award for the best designation model in summer 2009, this is the best award for the most unique and beautiful designation model. By creating the model, Coca-Cola has proven to be in the first position in designing the style and label for canned drink Coca-Cola always renews its label with catching images in order to bring consumers the freshness in its product. Recently Coca-Cola has run a campaign called happiness factory in Vietnam market. This is a central campaign of Coca-Cola in 2010.In this campaign, it launched a series of products with the image happiness factory.

In the special holidays, for example Tet holiday, Coca-Cola uses the swift images appearing in its labels. For example, packages 24 cans, Fanta, Sprite (it is the first time it uses the Tet label for

Fanta and Sprite), couple bottle and package of 6 can Coca-Cola 330ml all have the Tet labels. Especially in the World cup 2010, Coca-Cola used the colorful bubbles images in its product to adhere to that event. Taking advantage of the spirit of Worldcup, Coca-Cola makes people feel like they are drinking the flavor of the worlds biggest football festival.

Price policies.
a. Penetration pricing

level of satisfactionwith coca -colaproduct'sprice

13% 20% too expensive quitereasonable cheap 67%

In our survey we ask consumer about how they feel about the price of Coca-Cola and the result is shown in the graph above. From the graph, we can see that almost 70% of people interviewed replies that the Coca-Cola product price is quite reasonable, while 13% of people say the price is very cheap. Combining these two figures together we have more than 80% of people have the ability to buy Coca-Cola products without any hesitation. However, there is also 20% of people interviewed says that Coca-Cola products price are too expensive. The reason behind that is that these people are poor and they think Coca-Cola products are luxury drinks or these people expect to get more utilities when they pay money to buy Coca-Cola products.

In summary, Coca-Cola is able to reach mass market by charging appropriately low prices in accordance with Vietnamese purchasing power so that anyone could buy Coca-Cola products. By doing this way, Coca-Cola has penetrated Vietnam market easily and become the familiar brand with many people. The low price is designated to capture a large share of a substantial market .The gain from capturing the mass market outweighs the loss prom low price , as a result Coca-Cola receive a big profit each year. For example, the price 6000VND/can for the classic Coca-Cola is suitable with Vietnamese consumer. The product orange juice Minute maid Teppy has appeared in the supermarkets and stores all around Vietnam with the price 5000 VND for the traditional bottle, 6000 VND for the plastic bottle PET 330ml and 15000 VND for the plastic bottle PET 1l.Basing on these data we can see most of the middle-class people are able to buy Coca-Cola products. b. Value-based pricing Coca-Cola charges the price of its products based on the value that consumers feel that it would be. It does not base on the cost of producing its products instead it starts with consumer, considers the competition and then determines the appropriate price. The basic reason is that Coca-Cola is customer driven, seeking to understand the attributes customers want in the goods they buy and the value of that bundle of attributes to customers. However, Coca-Cola has also many competitors in market, so it must consider the value of alternatives. Therefore, the price of product Coca-Cola set at a level that seems to the customer to be good price compared with the prices of other options. The real value of a can of Coca-Cola which comprises both the water and can is only 800 VND but the price of a can is 6000 VND. The price 6000 VND is charged based on the cost of marketing and distribution, the competitors offering price and the attributes that consumers place on CocaCola products. By marketing- mix strategies, Coca-Cola builds its price that people percept it reasonable, finally consumers will accept these prices and take it for granted. Although the price far outweighs the cost of producing, the price 6000VND/can is also suitable with Vietnamese consumers. From this data we can see how big profit Coca-Cola earns each year and how successful its marketing mix is. c. Discount pricing

Coca-Cola also uses the discount pricing for the consumer buying the big amount of products, and paying before the due date. It will adjust the price in two following ways. Coca-Cola will grant cash discount for those who pay immediately for the products they buy. On the other hand, Coca-Cola will grant the additional amount of product for those who buy a large amount of products. These policies are intended to encourage customers loyalty. Coca-Cola uses functional discount for its distribution channel intermediaries. The wholesaler or retailers, perform a service or function for the Coca-Cola, they will be compensated by typically percentage discount from based price. Coca-Cola has built its monopoly agent networks by attractive and preferential policies, creating a good bond between the company and its agents. According to these policies, these agents are not allowed to sell competitors products. In return, the licensed agent are benefited from the policy buy 5 award 1.These agents will be discount 300 VND for each can sold. d. Price lining Coca-Cola also charges the price of its product by product classification, what we call in marketing price lining. With each product, it will offer different types with different prices in order to satisfy the diversifying need of consumers. By doing this way, Coca-Cola is able to reach several market segments and the consumers will be offered a wider variety of products at each established price. For consumers, the question of price may be quite simple: all they have to do is to find a suitable type of product with the best affordable price. These products are different from each other by the sizes, features, and take different form. For example the prices of fizzy Coca-Cola are: Can 330ml 6800VND Plastic bottle 390 Plastic bottle PET 1,5l 8000VND 14000VND

e. Status quo price Nowadays the price of Coca-Cola is higher than the same type product, but the difference between these prices is not so much. We can see the information of updated price table between Coca-Cola and its biggest opponent Pepsi Coca Pepsi Can 330 ml Bottle Pet 1.5 l Box (24cans/box) 6.800 14.000 145.000 6.500 13.500 140.000

By charging the price near to the price of its opponent, Coca-Cola has applied the status quo price strategy. The strategy allows Coca-Cola to maintain its market share and be able to react timely to opponents action. In summary, Coca-Cola is able to reach mass market by multiple price policies but the most important one is the policy of charging appropriately low prices in accordance with Vietnamese purchasing power so that anyone could buy Coca-Cola products. By doing this way, Coca-Cola has penetrated Vietnam market easily and become the familiar brand with many people

Distribution Network

In the process of doing a survey, we have asked customers the question do you find hard when finding a place to buy Coca-Cola product? as shown as above. And the answers of people interviewed do not make us surprise. Most of the customers said that they could easily find the products of Coco-Cola (up to 91% of people interviewed). 5.6% said that they met some difficulties. Otherwise, only 3.4% said that it is very hard to buy the products of CocaCola. These data above has proven that Coca-Cola has succeeded in having a distribution products network wide enough to meet the demand of Vietnamese customers. Therefore, in this part, we will continue to show you how the Distribution Products Network of Coca-Cola affects its customers. Distribution Products Network The beverage products of Coca-Cola are produced at the three bottling plants of Coca-Cola Beverages Vietnam located in Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, and Da Nang. In 2001, the Vietnam government agreed to allow three bottling plants merge together into one, in which the bottling plants of Coca-Cola

Beverages Vietnam (CCBV) in Ho Chi Minh City plays a central role and manages the two others. The two bottling plants in Hanoi and Da Nang operate as two branches of Coca-Cola Beverages Vietnam Company in northern and central areas. The advantage of having the three manufacturing plants spreading in the three northern, central, and southern areas has enabled Coca-Cola to expand the distribution products network in all areas, offer enough products for agents in these areas. With regard to beverage products, the distribution network is very important, so throughout the development process in Vietnam, Coca-Cola has always paid a special attention to how to develop an intensive distribution products network. In reality, after seventeen years in Vietnam, Coca-Cola has proven that it has succeeded in having an intensive distribution products network. Nowadays, you can easily catch the beverage products of Coca-Cola in almost everywhere. You can catch it in restaurants, cafe shops, tea shops, supermarkets, etc. This success can be explained by its four main intermediary channels. There are retailer, merchant wholesaler, agents, and brokers; in which retailer is the most important one. Hence, in order to lengthen its own success, Coca-Cola still continues to expand its distribution products network through agents, cafe shops, tea shops, restaurants, etc. and attract agents by increasing support activities for them such as support

decorating stores, financial assistance, v.v

A special feature of Coca-Cola distribution channel in Vietnam is the use of sale force pushing small handcart to sell in crowed streets and to approach to the narrowest alleys. The sale force using hand cart of Coca-Cola sell a coca bottle with only 4000 VND while in the restaurant it is 10000 VND. Obviously, Coca-Cola does not put their expectation in revenue of each coca bottle but the main reason is to market the taste to customer and make its trade mark appearing in everywhere. This is a unique method in capturing the market share of Coca-Cola because the selling by handcart is one of familiar images in the lives of Vietnamese people. Even in the streets kiosks you can easily see the Coca-Cola products, which is attributable to the ever

wide distribution network of Coca-Cola.

Promotion Marketing

As you see from the chart above, almost people interviewed said that they are impressed by the Coca-Colas advertisements, in which 9.5% of people interviewed are strongly impressed by these advertisements. On the other hand, only 30% of people interviewed said that they are rarely affected by these advertisements, in which 9.2% are not affected at all. From these data, we can conclude that Coca-Cola has been successful in its promotion marketing policies. Therefore, in this part, we will continue to find out how the promotion marketing policies of Coca-Cola affect its customers. There are four reasons that explain why Coca-Cola has succeeded in its promotion marketing policies such as advertising, public relation, sale promotion, and personal selling. Thus, the following parts will take closer looks at these reasons. a. Advertising

One of the most important secrets that create the success of Coca-Cola is advertising activities. Everyone knows that the quality and taste of CocaCola has not changed for more than 100 years. The great thing of Coca-Cola is the advertising activities, which has built a famous brand for this company. Coca-Cola is one of the few companies that spend a substantial amount of money which is equivalent to the cost of production to polish brand since it was established. Besides, the confidence of Coca-Cola is one of the factors that make this famous brand today, which is expressed clearly in their advertising slogan. The advertising slogan are " The great national temperance beverage" (1906), " Six million a day" (1925), " The only thing like Coca-Cola is Coca-Cola itself" (1942), " What you want is a Coke" (1952), Look for the real things ( 1974), " Coke is it!" (1982), " Always Coca-Cola" (1993), Open Happiness (2009), and Twist The Cap To Refreshment ( 2010) have demonstrated the ambition and confidence of this brand. Coca Cola has always invested in advertising strategy for its beverage products. In retailing stores and supermarkets, Coca Cola sells its products where the customers can easily find, just in front of corridor, or other eye-catching places. To get this priority, Coca-Cola has to pay huge amount of money. It always sets a priority for advertising its products to customers through television, newspapers, newspaper, magazine, radio, outdoor media (bus stop shelter, sport arena, etc.), internet, and games. According to media & market research company TNS Vietnam, in 2008, Coca-Cola Beverages Vietnam Company has spent about U.S. $ 1.5 million for advertising its products on television and in newspapers in Vietnam. This is not a small amount of money and Coca-Cola Vietnam was not regretted to pay for its advertising activities.

 The Coca-Colas advertisements are very impressive and attract the attention of many people, with unique, creative ideas as Coca-Cola advertising clip with Mr BRRRRRRRrrrr, with Happiness Factory, or with the idea about the way celebrating a victory of famous football stars with background music Waving Flag, the official song of World Cup 2010. b. Public Relation Coca-Cola Beverages Vietnam Company regularly organizes useful and meaningful activities for customers, especially for youth. These activities have created an innovative, creative, dynamic, optimistic, happy, and fascinating image for Coca-Cola in customers eye. Moreover, these activities have made Coca-Cola become more familiar with consumers by surprising and creative activities. Happiness Factory campaign: showing the inner world of a bottle of Coca-Cola which is so lively and passionate. All these are deployed under a lot of creative and fun activities. On this occasion, Coca-Cola has also spent nearly a million trial beverage products for consumers in big cities such as Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and Can Tho.

"Sing with Coca-Cola" an opportunity for the young people to sing: This activity is one of the series of activities of the campaign, "Drink is BRRRR" that is being deployed nationwide contest by CocaCola."BRRRR-KOOL SUMMER" contest was held to encourage the spirit that is always ebullient and dynamic in young people, and to impulse the life that is always filled with joy and delight. Coca-Cola would like to bring a fresh feeling which is completely new, unique and different from any previous experience for consumers. Coca-Cola also organizes the campaign "There are always delicious dishes with Coca-Cola": to popularize the culture of Vietnam through many fun activities including television program cuisine competition". Meal is an occasion for people to gather, chat and enjoy delicious food together. A delicious meal with a fun atmosphere always contributes to increase the close friendship between family members, friends, colleagues, etc. Thus, Coca-Cola has organized the campaign "There are always delicious dishes with Coca-Cola" to popularize and enrich the cuisine culture of Vietnam as well as to show the way how to enjoy the dishes harmoniously. Coca-Cola has sponsored the real and exciting television program " cuisine competition": telecasting every Sunday at 9 am on channel HTV9 starting on 18/10, replaying every Saturday at 10:20 on

channel HN1 and at 20:30 Friday, 10:30 Saturdays on channel HTV3. This program is not only an entertaining program, but also a program supplying food knowledge for customers. It helps you to widen your knowledge to choose foods that are good for your health, learn how to cook your favourite dishes, as well as have interesting moments with friends.

Coca-Cola also builds a specialized food site with useful information on channel 14 at: http://duataiamthuc.kenh14.vn/: Here, young people can register and update information about the cuisine competition" program with Coca-Cola, answer the questions to win weekly prizes and share delicious dishes, the specialties of each region together with friends. On this occasion, Coca-Cola also spends 300,000 free trial samples at restaurants in two cities, Hanoi and HCM City.

The program "who will you share the best? Having Coca-Cola for person you love at New Year ": sending thousands of good wishes to people all over the country. Especially, New Year Coca-Cola Program will spend 233,420,000 dong corresponding to 46,684 love wishes you sent to relatives or friends during the program to support for Clean Water Community Programs. With this meaningful program, customers Coca-Cola not only is shared love with relatives or friends, but also makes a contribution to the community.

c. Sale Promotion In order to have such successes of Coca-Cola in Vietnam market nowadays, the marketing managers of Coca-Cola have really succeeded in using their communications tools. Understanding psychology of their consumers, Coca-Cola does not forget that promotion activity is still one of the best tools to popularize the images of its products to consumers. CocaCola Vietnam has just started a promotion program all over the country for the youth, "Uncork a bottle - Win the prizes." The difference of this program with other promotions is that the prizes are usually given teams rather than an individual. And, with the teams, you can easily separate the joy with your friends rather than take it for yourself. This spirit is shown by ways to win: join the lids of bottles or cans to win the prizes that young people love. When customers use the beverage bottles or cans which are manufactured by Coca-Cola Vietnam such as Coca-Cola, Fanta Orange, Sprite, Samurai, Thums Up, they will have a chance to win the attractive prizes like Piaggio LXV 125, mobile phone Sony Ericsson W700i, T-shirts, clocks, etc. The awards are not merely objects but also as a way for young people to show their personality and style to enjoy their lives. The young people when using bottles or cans of Coca-Cola products will have the lids which contains a half of the prize. If customers join two lids which have the corresponding symbols, they will win the prize. Therefore, the chances for win will be higher if a group of customers which are from two people or more join together to coordinate and collect this luck information. Using promotion not only helps company's sales to increase, but also shows the value that CocaCola gives its customers. This is a powerful communication tool that not only Coca-Cola but also other companies use as a way to grow its market

share.

d. Personal Selling Building a brand is so difficult, but maintaining it is more difficult. So, in order to maintain a successful brand over hundreds years, Coca-Cola had suitable policies in enhancing interaction with customers so as to develop long term satisfaction of customers. Besides the promotions for senior customers, Coca-Cola has also known that the level of satisfaction of its customers also depends a lot on the attitude of its sale force. For this reason, Coca-Cola has decided to establish courses which train its sale force how to communicate with customers. After passing these courses, the sale force of Coca-Cola has received certificates which confirm that they have passed those courses. Thus, through these courses, the sale force of Coca-Cola has already known the way of how to satisfy its customers. Therefore, once again, Coca-Cola has demonstrated that it always put customers in the first order in its marketing strategy. This explains the reason why Coca-Cola has sustained a strong market share not only in Vietnam but also in many parts in the world.

Conclusions and Recommendations

The final words of more than 100 advanced students at the National Economics University have been put on the table and analyzed so as to create the more professional outlook on the comparison between the preresearch perceptions and the one after such powerful, and useful carryingout. We can see that with the first hypothesis People tend to choose their

sweet beverages matching with their tastes is totally rational, because we have 80% of people interviewed says that they like or very like Coca-Cola quality, leading us to the reasoning that Coca-Cola is able to provide almost all people with the best satisfactory quality, and it is successful in becoming familiar with peoples daily purchasing habit. The second prime perception People tend to choose the sweet beverage whose price level is reasonable is also on the right track with the absolute nod of the statistics, in which 70% of people interviewed replies that the Coca-Cola product price is quite reasonable, while 13% of people says the price is very cheap. Combining these two figures together we have more than 80% of people have no hesitation in buying Coca-Cola products. From the very fist sight into this competitive edge, we could make such right reasoning because we consider the normal price level of coca-cola varieties: The product orange juice Minute maid Teppy has appeared in the supermarkets and stores all around Vietnam with the price 5000 VND for the traditional bottle, 6000 VND for the plastic bottle PET 330ml and 15000 VND for the plastic bottle PET 1l. After this two times that we can shape big smile on our faces, we have to put out feet back to the ground with the strong shake-up in the third hypothesis, which states that People tend to choose the sweet beverage which pop up as frequent advertisements. In fact, 9.5% of people interviewed are strongly impressed by these advertisements. On the other hand, only 30% of people interviewed said that they are rarely affected by these advertisements, in which 9.2% are not affected at all. Although this is still not convincing evidence that makes us believe in the inverse belief, there are many things ahead that need doing in order to make the promotion, or in other words, advertisements edge much more sharpened, together with other Ps to make a real difference.

Therefore, Coca-colas sustainable market shares are explained under four angles: the first one is penetration pricing, in which Coca-cola charges quite reasonable price even when their varieties are of quite good and good quality. However, when the market shares in Vietnamese market have reached their own target, one possibility may be a small fluctuation in the price level in the rising direction. The second factor is all about quite good quality. The new and better thing is always welcomed, so that coca-cola will try their best to diversify and better their quality, adding some more lusters to their potential sons. The first two seem to be quite convincing facts that help explain why coca-cola sustain such unbeatable samurais power in Vietnamese market, it will become much more convincing with the next two additional factors, that are wide distribution network and products diversification. While wide distribution network helps coca-cola reach out to all the corners of the market, products diversification brings about various choices of what are the customers best interest. As economic students, we all perceive that any foreign companies or organizations that invest into Vietnamese markets will never want to take their bucks back to their pocket, because a lot of economists admit that Vietnam is and will be a potential destination for all the ambitious investors. Coca-cola is no exception. They will try their best to survive in such competitive market. However, all long-term plans should be drafted into genuine actions by setting up more specific and attainable short-term ones. Some recommendations from us should be the followings: Price reduction, wider distribution, more noticeable advertisements, and more diverse products. With the fist one, coca-cola shouldnt follow strictly their penetration pricing, because, nowadays, more and more soft companies are established in Vietnam, making this segment much more competitive. If

coca-cola regard their market shares as being big enough to raise the price level, its the most terrible mistake anyone could have ever made. Taking that action, as a result, their revenue will reduce with no brakes. One explanation may be the greatness of price elasticity of demand for sweet beverages of Vietnamese picky customers. However, Coca-cola shouldnt reduce their price level too much, because they are still a soft drink giant in the world with the long-listed table of achievements in the past. To the two next edges that coca-cola should pay attention to is the wider distribution and more diverse products. No one can deny the fact that, with a product, especially a soft drink with no significant difference compared with other parallels, the wider and the more diverse, the better they are. In addition, coca-cola should take advertisements strategy as its top priority, because it is the noise from promotion planning that help the potential customers know the newly- produced products from the manufacturers. Its also the noise that makes the second round of production more efficient and perfect, regarding the on-a-change requirements of the customers. With that noise, Coca-cola not only capture such current sustainable market shares, but also a strong ones in the near future, given the constraints that more and more entries are present. Taking into consideration these four reasoning, together with their own experiences and their would-be ventures, Coca-cola can become an unbeatable giant in soft drink or sweet beverage market segments, not only in Viet Nam, but over the world as well.

Appendix
le e o s t f c io w hc c v l f aisa t n it o a
1% 3 2% 0 tooe p n iv xes e q itere s a le u a on b cep ha 6% 7

-c lapo u t pic o r d c 's r e

W theprices of coca-colaproductsin the ere ascendancyover your consum ption?

15%

22%

Theyare unaffordable, so I must find other cheaper beverages Som etim I think they are es, expensive, but, tim often, I es think it is appropriately charged. Theyare cheap, and I have no hesitation in buying coca-cola products

63%

Level of satisfaction with Coca-cola products quality

6 0 5 0 4 0 3 0 2 0 1 0 0 a olutely bs a olute bs ly quite quite rarely rarely not a a t ll not a a t ll 1 .8 0 9 2 .2 9 5 1

Has the diversification of coca-cola products met your demand?

D y think that the stylesand brandsof o ou coca-colaareeye-catchingenoug h?

20% theyreally stands out and are easily recognized theym ake no difference fromother beverage products

80%

howoften do coca-cola branchessupportbig events?

2% 13% 31% 13% 41% Theyoften appear in big events and strongly support these events Theyoften appear in big events but dont support these events. Som etim they appear in big events and es, becom the m supporters of these e ain events Som etim they appear in big events, but es, support nothing Theynever appear in big events

WHAT SHOULD COCA-COLA DO TO INCREASE ITS SALE?

reducingprice 28.80% 35.60% 21.20% 14.40% increasing advertisement wideningselling places diversifyingproduct

Reference
1. http://doanhnhansaigon.vn/online/ho-tro-thong-tin/san-phammoi/2010/05/1044191/nuoc-cam-teppy-la-san-pham-cua-coca-colava-minute-maid/ 2. http://kynang.7pop.net/2010/09/nguon-goc-cua-nhan-hangcocacola.html 3. http://www.dalatsme.com/index.php? option=com_content&view=article&id=1629:san-pham-tai-cheplantbottle-cua-coke-gianh-chien-thang&catid=146:thuonghieu&Itemid=335

4. http://vietbao.vn/Kinh-te/CocaCola-tung-ra-nhieu-san-pham-moidanh-cho-dip-tet/45266445/89/ 5. http://vietbao.vn/Kinh-te/San-pham-moi-cua-Coca-Cola-Nuoc-camep-co-tep-Minute-Maid-Splash/45165751/87/ 6. http://vietbao.vn/Kinh-te/Dai-ly-doc-quyen-cua-Coca-Cola-bikien/10906498/87/ 7. http://forum.rgb.vn/showthread.php?t=405 8. http://www.openshare.com.vn/community/binh-luan-thitruong/19424-cocacola-voi-slogan-quang-cao-tet-tet-nay-vy-danhcocacola-cho-nhoc 9. http://www.vietnambranding.com/thong-tin/diem-tin-thuonghieu/8301/Coca-Cola-khoi-dong-chien-dich-chao-Tet-Canh-Dan 10. http://doanhnhansaigon.vn/online/su-kien-doanh-nghiep/hoatdong-doanh-nghiep/2010/08/1047033/nuoc-sach-cho-cong-dong-danang/ 11. http://top9x.us/news/?page=/giai-tri/coca-cola-tung-bung-chaodon-nam-moi/a100246.html 12. http://viettas.com/detail/su-kien-cocacola-va-khai-mac-worldcup-2010-tai-ha-noi.html 13. http://rmcst.gov.vn/NewsDetails.aspx?i=122

14. http://tintuc.xalo.vn/00386656929/chien_luoc_tiep_thi_cua_coca_cola_dip_world_cup_2010 .html 15. http://www.web-design-123.com/tin-trong-nuoc/nuoc-sachdasani-va-nhung-du-an-coca-cola 16. http://vietbao.vn/Kinh-te/Chung-tay-Lam-sach-bai-bien-quocte/55329089/88/