WHY COCA COLA STILL CONTINUES TO ADVERTISE

Advertising is any paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods, and services through the mass media and with an identifiable sponsor.

What an ideal advertising seeks to achieve is not to increase sales instantaneously but to create awareness. This is because consumers do not immediately make purchasing decisions upon coming into contact with an advert. The average consumer is exposed to perhaps three thousand commercial messages a day from all sources. From the time he gets up in the morning the consumer is bombarded with sales messages on the television, radio, bill boards, and many more. Everywhere the consumer turns, there are advertisements, “Buy this!”

A consumer, thus only makes a purchase after going through many processes and if the product or service satisfies his physical or psychological needs. Therefore the primary objective of advertising is to first of all create awareness.

Product Life Cycle

When a product is introduced into the market is goes through several stages. The first stage is the introductory stage, where the product is formally launched into the market for business.

The second stage is the acceptance stage where the product is adopted by consumes. Sales level as well as profit margin can be very high at this level.

The third state is the maturity stage. This is where the product becomes a widely recognized brand with people becoming so familiar with the product. At this stage which is considered as crucial if the product is not revived through advertisements, interest levels in consumers could dwindle, and shift to other products on the market. At this stage one could see advertisements on new brands of the same product just to re-emphasis the continued existence of the product. Examples; New Ariel Gold washing power, New Omo washing power wish triple effect, and New Milo with Antigen E   

   

The last stage is the decline stage where the product fades away completely from the market, perhaps due to lack of advertisement.

Why a company like Coca Cola should continue to advertise?

The iconic brand Coca Cola was introduced on May 8, 1886 by a pharmacist name Dr. John Pemberton. He carried a jug of Coca Cola syrup to Jacobs’ Pharmacy in downtown Atlanta, where it was mixed with carbonated water and sold for five cents a glass.

Over the years Coca Cola has evolved to be enlisted among the most-admired and best-known trademarks in the world. Studies have proved that Coca Cola is the second-most widely understood terms in the world, after “okay.” From one product Coca Cola now has more than 500 brands, and has grown from selling 9 drinks a day in 1886 to 1.8 billion a day. The company has expanded from one city in one country availability to more than 200 countries around the world.

Of a fact Coca Cola achieved all these enviable pedigree on the wings of strong, vibrant, and years of consistent advertising. This is epitomized in the company’s track record of huge budgetary allocations for advertising campaigns since 1887 till date. For instance, aside many other sponsorships Coca Cola has associated and continues to associate itself with, it is of the only brands with the worldwide presence and ability to sponsor the two biggest sporting events in the world, for more than 80 years; The Olympic Games and the FIFA World Cup. Coca Cola has also been sponsoring all other FIFA tournaments since 1976.

Sponsorship of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games for instance connected with more than 500 million consumers in China. For want of space only but few can be typed on Coca Cola’s amazing history of advertising campaigns over the years.    

Coca Cola continues unabated to advertise because it want to emphasis over and over again the continued existence of it iconic product, and also to create awareness for its new brands that have been introduced into the market.

Again Coca Cola should continue to advertise in order to maintain that bond it has established over the years with its millions of consumers out there in over 200 countries. This helps to maintain a very strong consumer loyalty.

Also Coca Cola should continue unabated to advertise in order to continue to attract new markets. Coca Cola has become a beverage not for only one group or class of persons but for all persons, regardless; age, status, race, religion, and tribe.

Coca Cola should continue to advertise in order to keep up with competition. Currently the brand is the second-most understood terms in the world. In the world of FIFA World Cup games and Olympic Games, Coca Cola is the most popular brands with no doubts. Not to say the least; Christmas and Santa Clause have always been associated with the brand Coca Cola. It cannot afford the luxury to stop or pulse advertising.

The company Coca Cola should persist advertising in order to keep updating its numerous consumers with price changes. This is because consumers mostly feel secured and satisfied when they become aware that what they are buying is at a standardized price.

www.thecoca-colacompany.com

Brain, T., (2006). The Psychology of Selling.

USES AND GRATIFICATION THEORY OF THE MEDIA

The Uses and Gratification Theory according to the main proponents; Blumler and Kate, suggest that the media users play an active role in choosing and using the media. The theory gives the audience the full power to decide on the use of the media and how it will affect them.


The audience doesn’t just consume the media content but for a specific purpose that enhances gratification of certain needs mainly social and psychological needs.

Blumler and Kate believe that there is not merely one way that the populace uses the media, instead they believe there are many reasons for using the media, as there are many users.



The Uses and Gratification Theory however has several limitations/weaknesses, one of which is that viewers may not know why they chose to watch what they did, or may be unable to explain fully. The reasons given may be the least important. People may simply offer reasons which they have heard others mention.

Again, as a limitation the public may not be well-informed, thoughtful and be engrossed in public affairs, but rather they may only pay casual and intermittent attention to public affairs and remain ignorant of the details.

The Uses and Gratification approach has also been criticized as “vulgar gratification”. It is individualistic and psychologistic, tending to ignore socio-cultural context. As a theoretical stance the Uses and Gratification foregrounds individual psychological and personality factors and backgrounds sociological interpretations.

Lastly by the Uses and Gratification Theory, news media cannot conceal problems; it may rather change or lessen the awareness, priorities and prominence people attached to a set of problems.

THE AGENDA SETTING THEORY

According to the main proponents of the Agenda Setting Theory, Maxwell McCombs and Donald l. Shaw (1972), the media, particularly the news media, through its manufacturing processes gives much prominence to certain socio-political and economic issues to the neglect of other important issues.


The public pick these issues as projected salient by the media, put prominence on it and it forms the basis of discussion throughout the day. The Theory according to Bernard Cohen (1963) says, the media (mainly the news media) aren’t always successful at telling us what to think, but they are quiet successful at telling us what to think about.

A good example is the actions surrounding the O.J case and the Clinton scandal. Some people believed O.J was guilty and others believed he was innocent. Some believed Clinton should have been impeached, and others thought otherwise. The media was thus not extremely successful in telling us what to think on these issues, but most Americans believed these were both important issues for along period of time.



Weaknesses of the Agenda Setting Theory are that; sometimes the media gives prominence to certain frivolities to the neglect of other important issues. It tries to direct the publics’ focus to these frivolities. For instance, instead of highlighting issues like, how to help farmers in the village to get their crops to the big cities in order to boost agriculture upon which the country derives most of its profits, they would rather go about giving prominence to less-important issues like beauty pageant shows.

Again, as a limitation the theory focuses only on the presentation of issues during election campaigns and the willingness of voters to listern to issues presented by the media but fails to evaluate the degree to which mass media is able to raise issues and attract information-seeking audience on its own.

Lastly though the Agenda Setting Theory has predictive power which states that if people are exposed to the same media, they will feel the same issues are important, it can be proven false. If people are not exposed to the same media, they won't feel the same issues are important.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

Goals unlock your positive mind and release ideas and energy for goal attainment.


Without goals, you simply drift and flow on the currents of life. With goals, you fly like an arrow, straight and true to your target.


Goals enable you to control the direction of change in your life.

The more you complain, criticize, accuse and blame other people the more you trigger feelings of bitterness, anger and hatred.

Positive emotions empower whiles negative emotions disempower.

Negative emotions of hurt, blame and anger make you weak, bitter, hostile and irritable.

Positive emotions of happiness, excitement, love and enthusiasm make you feel more powerful and confident.


You are responsible for the consequences of your actions and your behaviors. You are where you are and what you are today because of the choices and decisions you made.

By underestimating yourself, you set either no goals or low goals that are far below what you are truly capable of accomplishing.


The very core of your personality is your values. Your values are what make you who you are. If you have good values, you will belief yourself to be good and expect good things to come your way.


Your goals must be congruent with your values, and your values must be congruent with your goals. The unexamined life is not worth living. By Socrates.

It doesn’t matter where you are coming from; all that really matters is where you are going. You become what you think about most of the time.


Truly great men and women always live their lives consistent with their highest values, even when no one is looking. Mediocre men and women, on their hand, are always cutting corners and compromising their integrity, especially when no one is watching.


Realize what you really want. It automatically stops you from chasing after just anything.

You must be able to recognize at a point in your life whether the direction you are going has limited future or unlimited future.


See yourself as a bundle of resources capable of doing many different things.

Never allow yourself to get locked into a particular course of action; especially if you are not happy with the way your career is going.



Goal setting enables you to use vastly more of your thinking powers than most people.

As you set your goals and begin moving toward them, it is essential that you establish a series of benchmarks or measures that you can use to evaluate your progress, day-by-day and hour-by-hour.


A goal or a decision without a deadline is merely a discussion

What gets measured gets done. If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.

Between you and anything you want to accomplish there is constraint, or limiting factor, that determines how fast you get to where you want to go.

80 percent of the constraints come from within and only 20 percent comes from outside.


Look deep within yourself and identify the key constraints in your personality, temperament, skills, abilities, habits, education, or experience that might be holding you back from achieving your goals.


The two major obstacles to success and achievement are fear and doubt.

The fear of failure, poverty, loss, embarrassment and rejection.

Doubt of our own abilities.


The primary antidotes to doubt and fear are courage and confidence.

In our economic system, your income will be determined by three factors: first, what you do; second, how well you do it; and third, the difficulty of replacing you.


To achieve something that you have never achieved before, you must become someone that you have never been before.


In management there are key result areas that can determine your success or failure at your job. These are: planning, organizing, staffing, delegating, supervising, measuring and reporting.


The very best way to develop your skills is in the direction of your natural talents and interests.


Your ability to form the right relationships with the right people at every stage of your life and career will be the critical determinant of your success and achievement.

The more people you know and who know you in a positive way, the more successful you will be at anything you attempt.


A team player is one who always comes prepared to every meeting and constructively contributes to meeting proceedings.


It’s always easier to get into something than it is to get out.

Planning is a list of every activity that you will have to engage in from the beginning to the end, to accomplish a specific goal or objective.


Without a goal or plan guiding you, you only react to events as they occurred in your day-to-day activities.

A great life, like a great ship should never be held by a single hope or a single rope.

Spend more time doing more of those tasks that can have the greatest possible consequences on your life and work.


Your goals must be written and described in the positive, present and personal tenses.


Successful people are those who visualize the kind of success they want to enjoy in advance. Your self-image is made up of the mental pictures that you feed your mind prior to any event.


You must be ready and flexible for a change at any time in order to match up with the timings.


Be willing to deal with the world as it is, rather than the way you wish it were or the way that it might have been in the past.

As a good leader is always willing to be open minded, flexible, calm, confident and curious if you want to be able to recognize new opportunities and possibilities as they open up around you.


Always do more than you are paid for. Do more than others expect from you. Go the extra mile. Get busy, get going, take action, don’t waste time and never looked back.


Ignorance causes us to fear change, to fear the unknown, and to avoid trying anything new or different.


The very best qualities of strength, courage, character, and persistence are brought out in you when you face your greatest challenges and you respond to them positively and constructively.

Persistence is the ability to face defeat again and again without giving up. Success is failure turned inside out.

PURPOSE OF LIFE

Your valuables in life do not determine your value. The most valuable things in life are not assets. You may have all of the world’s most luxurious assets and still miss God’s purpose for your life.



Nothing matters in life more than knowing God’s purpose for your life, and nothing can compensate for not knowing them. As you strive on daily basis to working towards an acceptable and a respectable place in life, so you must also work more assiduously to know God’s purpose for your life.



God’s purpose for your life is not all about success, wealth, fame or pleasure. All these are good though but without God, being pre-eminent in your life, your success would be nothing but piles of sorrows, your wealth would be subjected to endless worries from all angles. In addition, your fame would be nothing but a mere shadow and finally your pleasure would deceptively turn into heaps of pains. God’s purpose for your life goes beyond all these gains. Know God’s purpose for your life and everything pertaining to good life and godliness would be given to you from above.

Without purpose, life is trivial, petty, pointless, and is like events without reason.



Without God, life has no purpose and without purpose life has no meaning, without meaning, life has no significance or hope. Your life as a child of God becomes well structured and organized when you get to know your purpose in life. You become very much settled, well focused and prudent in everything decision or step you take.



The greatest tragedy is not death, but life without purpose. People who do not know their purpose try to do too much and that causes stress, fatigue and conflict upon conflict. To such people 24hrs in a day is just not enough for them. How they wish God had made it more than 24hrs!!!.



Without a clear purpose you would keep changing jobs, relationships, churches, thinking or hoping beyond hope that each change will settle the confusion or fill the emptiness in your heart.



Get to know God more than before and get to know your true purpose in life. Your purpose in life is different from your ambitions and goals. Ambitions and goals are self-set-target, which of course is liable to extinction.



When God was creating you He breathed His breathe into you. What He breathed into your being was not just a mere air, but a purpose filled with ideas, abilities, capabilities, wisdom, and fullness.



Your purpose therefore on earth here is to exhale all that God inhaled into you. The ideas to bring out innovative inventions, the ability to achieve great conquests and the wisdom to excel at anything and everything you do.

Your purpose, which has been imputed into you even before you became known to the world by God, would last even to eternity. God’s purpose for your life knows no boundaries and is not subjected to any human regulations or limitations.



Until a discoverer tells of how to put his discovery into use, you can never make any good use of his discovery. Until a manufacturer gives out a written manual as how to use his product, the product would simply be of no good use and would never be no matter how prolific it might have been. Until you develop an intimate relationship with God to know his purpose for your life, you would always find yourself wanting and never satisfied in life simply because your life does not depend on the abundance of things that you might possess. Remember in his word he said, “Without me you can do nothing”. Know that the best legacy you can live on earth is not prosperity but how purposeful you were. You would be remembered not for how prosperous you were but how purposeful you were. God richly bless you.

CREATING OF MORE AWARENESS ON INSURANCE

Despite the increasing proliferation of insurance industries in the country, it is very sad to know that majority of Ghanaians have still not ventured into it. Currently there are close to fifty insurance industries in the country.



The question one may perhaps want to ask is why this phenomena? Is it because the much needed awareness is lacked or there are not enough educative and informative programs to enlighten people on issues relating to insurance?



Most people are easily thrown into confusion and despair especially when battled with the unanticipated life occurrences like fire outbreaks, floods, robbery, fluctuations of prices and extreme decline in profit margin.



These unanticipated life tremors are capable of rendering one incapacitated and even totally crushing one’s world into pieces especially when there are no insurance covers or investment plans to salvage the loss and harm caused.



I believe that it is about high time insurance operators in the country embarked on regular and more effective awareness creation programs to make people know the need to venture into insurance.



More so I believe insurance industries must not only limit their operations to the capital and urban centers where they can secure lucrative deals. They must extend their wings to the rural and deprived areas and also design suitable products and services to suit the economic stand of people living in these areas.



The fight of poverty in the country cannot be successful when majority of the citizenry do not have worthful plans to cater for life unexpectances.

It should be noted that the best future one can ever have lies on a good preparation today.

NOTHING IS UPSOLUTELY IMPOSSIBLE

nothing is upsolutely impossible in this life. you have so many ideas lying dormant and unused. it is up to you and i to take that bold step of exploring every single opportunity that comes our way.