Marketing in Coca Cola and in a Non Profit Organizations - Essay Example

The paper “Marketing in Coca Cola and in a Non Profit Organizations” is a motivating example of an essay on marketing. There are many differences between marketing in a multinational firm as Coca Cola and marketing that takes place in non-profit organizations such as government agencies, health care service, educational and religious organizations or activist groups to name a few. In the past, not for profit organizations did not realize the importance of marketing for them and how it can be applied in achieving non-commercial goals (Kotler 1979). Although this status has considerably changed, the acceptance of marketing as a crucial aspect of the strategic organizational plan is still missing in many nonprofit organizations. Therefore the biggest difference that a person changing careers from a multinational scale commercial organization to a nonprofit organization is this “nonacceptance” or the misconception of the usefulness of marketing for nonprofit making organizations (Williamson, 2009).

The spending levels and budget allocations will be another major difference where there are restrictions to allocate large funds for marketing activities in a not for profit organization. This is regulated by both the public scrutiny or the social organization spendings as well as the trustee board of the organization.

Another major difference lies in the objectives set for marketing activities. While creating awareness, brand image building, corporate image building or marketing a particular product concept or benefit can find common parallels in not for profit marketing, the primary objectives of a commercial organization are to generate profits from the customer-organization relationship (Williomson, 2009). In the case of non-profit organizations, other strategic objectives such as generating the public's trust take center stage (Bryce, 2007).

Multination films of the scale of Coco-Cola, invest heavily on marketing research by having the service of MIS executives and MIS agencies hired by large companies. Yet, small businesses or non-profit organizations can also gather marketing information, simply through techniques such as observations of events and happenings around them (Armstrong & Kotler, 2000). However non-profit marking organizations may not have the disposition towards marketing research and lack proper information to base decisions on (Armstrong & Kotler, 2000).

When it comes to largescale commercial organizations, the marketing function is fully supported by a large number of professional personnel and external agencies. This is especially in the case of designing campaigns, creating marketing communications, gathering marketing information, etc. However, when it comes to not for profit organizations unless it is a global scale organization, the professional marketing resources, and personnel at hand to execute marketing activities will be limited. This is where the marketing director of a not for profit organization may have to either persuade the volunteers and other personnel to let their creativity flow, undergo some formal marketing courses or invest in enlisting the help of external agencies as advertising companies.

Although there are many differences as highlighted above between the marketing function of a large scale commercial organization and a not for profit organization, the important aspect to remember is that, although the fundamental difference of maximizing profit vs, maximizing social benefit will remain unchanged, parallels in marketing concepts can be found in commercial as well as humanitarian marketing is undertaken in not for profit organizations. By realizing this, a person who has changed careers from a commercial organization to a nonprofit organization can apply the commercial marketing experience to spearhead the operations of the not for profit organization.