Individual Project - Research Paper Example

How Did the Marketing of Coca-Cola at the FIFA World Cup Affect its Performance? Founded in 1886 and incorporated in 1919, Coca-Cola is world’s renowned beverage corporation. It produces and sells over 500 brands of non-alcoholic beverages. It is regionally segmented into Latin America, Eurasia and Africa, Pacific, Europe, Corporate and Bottling Investments, thus a global presence (Coca-Cola). Coca-Cola has distinct marketing strategies that make its presence vividly visible across the globe.

It sponsors major events around the world, making the brand popular globally. FIFA World Cup, a football tournament bringing together teams from around the world, is one event where Coca-Cola features extensively. In fact, it is among the six sponsors at Partner level in sponsoring the FIFA World Cup. This level is the highest sponsorship level at the FIFA World Cup and comes with the highest cost among all sponsors. In the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa, Coca-Cola enjoyed association with FIFA and exclusive marketing assets as a marketing strategy.

Therefore, a crucial consideration would be the significance that this marketing strategy has on the company. The proposed research question is: “How did the marketing of Coca-Cola at the 2010 FIFA World Cup affect its performance?” To answer this question, datasets on the company’s performance indicator would be retrieved. In this paper, cash flow was used as the performance indicator. Dataset on cash flows for Coca-Cola Company was retrieved from the quarterly financial reports of the company as posted on its website and reported by the media.

To further objectively answer the research question, it would be helpful to compare the cash flows posted by Coca-Cola to the costs it incurred in its marketing during the period under focus. These datasets on cash flows and marketing expenditure for Coca-Cola are publicly available.From Bloomberg, Stanford reports that together with the other five partners, Coca-Cola raised between $24 million and $44 million. This is an immense expenditure for the six companies, including Coca-Cola. From the dataset on the quarterly financial postings of Coca-Cola, the cash flows before the 2010 FIFA World Cup were $1.

3 billion and $4.3 billion in the first and second quarters respectively; the sales volume during the tournament were $7.2 billion in the third quarter; and the sales after the FIFA World Cup was $9.5 billion in the fourth quarter (Coca-Cola). This indicates a tremendous increase in sales during the tournament and subsequent periods. Consistent results were posted on Bloomberg. From this online dataset, Stanford reports a 16% increase in sales volume in North America for Coca-Cola since 2007, just as the overall change in sales.

From these datasets, the tournament period had Coca-Cola post increased cash flows, this being consistent with the increased sales volume. This is the same period in which Coca-Cola enjoyed immense global marketing platform on the 2010 FIFA World Cup events. Stanford (2010) directly attributes this to the marketing in the tournament. Therefore, as other factors remained constant, the datasets answer the research question: the marketing of Coca Cola in the 2010 FIFA World Cup improved its performance.

Works CitedCoca-Cola. “Archive of Quarterly Earnings.” 2014. Web. 21 Oct. 2014. http://www.coca-colacompany.com/investors/quarterly-earnings-releasesStanford, Duane D. “Coca-Cola Profit Rises as World Cup Helps Boost Sales.” Bloomberg.com. Bloomberg. 21 Jul. 2010. Web. 21 Oct. 2014.