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    Case Study Coca Cola

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    Aleema Khan
    The Coca-Cola Company launched Surge, an energy drink, in 1997 with a $50 million marketing campaign. Initial sales were strong but began declining after a few years. By the early 2000s, Surge had been discontinued due to falling sales even after a new marketing effort. Product use testing like alpha and beta testing could have provided feedback from internal employees and consumers to identify issues prior to launch and inform changes to improve the product's chances of success.

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    Case Study Coca Cola

    Uploaded by

    Aleema Khan
    75 views3 pages
    The Coca-Cola Company launched Surge, an energy drink, in 1997 with a $50 million marketing campaign. Initial sales were strong but began declining after a few years. By the early 2000s, Surge had been discontinued due to falling sales even after a new marketing effort. Product use testing like alpha and beta testing could have provided feedback from internal employees and consumers to identify issues prior to launch and inform changes to improve the product's chances of success.

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    The Coca-Cola Company launched Surge, an energy drink, in 1997 with a $50 million marketing campaign. Initial sales were strong but began declining after a few years. By the early 2000s, Surge had been discontinued due to falling sales even after a new marketing effort. Product use testing like alpha and beta testing could have provided feedback from internal employees and consumers to identify issues prior to launch and inform changes to improve the product's chances of success.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    75 views3 pages

    Case Study Coca Cola

    Uploaded by

    Aleema Khan
    The Coca-Cola Company launched Surge, an energy drink, in 1997 with a $50 million marketing campaign. Initial sales were strong but began declining after a few years. By the early 2000s, Surge had been discontinued due to falling sales even after a new marketing effort. Product use testing like alpha and beta testing could have provided feedback from internal employees and consumers to identify issues prior to launch and inform changes to improve the product's chances of success.

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    Some of the key takeaways are that Coca-Cola launched Surge as an 'extreme' soda brand to compete with Mountain Dew. It saw initial success but then sales declined rapidly leading Coke to discontinue Surge in 2002.

    Coca-Cola launched Surge in 1997 as their most aggressive new soda brand of the decade. Surge was intended to directly compete with Mountain Dew and slow its growth in the market.

    Coca-Cola spent $50 million on nationwide marketing for Surge's launch. This initially led to increased sales and popularity for the brand.

    The Coca-Cola Surge:

    The Coca-Cola Company is an American company which is founded in 1892. It manufactures


    and sale the syrup and concentrate for Coca-Cola, which is a sweetened carbonated drink that
    is very popular in the United States and a global symbol of taste of America. Coca Cola also
    produces and sells more soft drinks and citrus beverages. With more than 2,800 products
    available in more than 200 countries, Coca-Cola is the largest beverage manufacturer and
    distributor in the world and one of the largest corporations in the United States. Headquarters
    are in Atlanta, Georgia.

    In 1997, Coca-Cola started production of Surge in the United States, with its original whitepaper
    name being "MDK," or "Mountain Dew Killer." It was the company's most aggressive launch of
    a soda brand in that decade. While initial reception to the beverage was strong, its appeal had
    all but faded by the early 2000s. It was made to provide coverage with Mello Yello as a means
    of slowing down Mountain Dew’s growth. Coke even attempted to gain users attention with
    different products like OK Soda or with similar ones like Mello Yello but did not succeed. Surge
    was intended to be more better on Mountain Dew by using maltodextrin for a super lasting and
    long blast of energy with much bolder and more brighter presentation. Its release was
    accompanied by a $50 million nationwide marketing campaign that actually led to increased
    sales and popularity. After few years of release, sales began to decrease. The Atlanta Journal-
    Constitution, Coke's hometown paper was already calling it a "classic example of failure" in
    2003 after most production ceased the prior year. Surge was taken off the shelves in 2002 after
    a new marketing effort failed and sales plummeted.

    What do you think would be the biggest concerns, or unknowns, about Coca cola that might
    be unearthed using product use testing?

    There are so many concerns and unknown related to Coca cola Surge. The main concern is that
    customers will going to care about that the brand has extra sugar or not. With that special
    flavor and new packaging, it does not create any hype and customers might think that this
    packaging has different taste or different ingredients as compare to the other products as they
    are going to invest $50 million for the commercialization of the product. Is it worth it? The
    other concern is that the product will generate profit or is it going to be another legit example
    of product failure?

    Using the list of product use testing decisions given in this chapter,
    make recommendations as to how some (or all) of these could have been product use tested
    prior to launch?
    There are three main testing methods: Alpha testing, Beta Testing, and Gamma testing. In this
    Case I suggest company to first perform Alpha testing. During Alpha testing, a company
    identifies bugs in product in its lab. Further, alpha testing is done with internal employees
    before lunching to real users. After sorting out alpha testing bugs, Company should go for Beta
    testing. Actually Beta testing is the final round of testing before a product is finally released to a
    wide audience. In Beta Testing, the product is given to limited people in general public. The
    company gets real user feedback so they sort out shortcomings prior to public lunching. Beta
    Testing is helpful in the sense of large audience.
    PRODUCT USE TESTING:
    Product use testing refers to the method by which we test the end user’s experience with the
    new product.
    Alpha testing: Alpha testing is used to identify all the possible bugs and issues before the
    product is provided to the end user for use. There are two type of testing in Alpha testing
     Black box testing
     White box testing
    Alpha testing is taking out in lab environment by the internal people of an organization i.e.
    employees.
    After conducting alpha testing, the result shows that it is a perfect product for those people
    who like to have carbonated sugary soda. It fulfils the requirements of required fun and taste.
    The target audience for this product is over young people, mid age men/women, and especially
    those people who likes to enjoy their fun and sugary soda requirements.

    Testing Results
    Surge Cans The product packaging is bold and bright, it shows the main idea
    behind the product that it fulfils the fun & taste requirements.

    Beta Testing: Beta testing is done to test the experience of end users. To identify the
    functionality, reliability, usability, and compatibility of a product.
    In beta testing we ask for the feedback of end users, there experience with the product,
    product quality, its packaging, and their satisfaction level.
    The main purpose of this testing is to find out “Do customers like the product”.
    Results of Beta Testing: Some customers find the packaging exciting and some found it stupid
    as they do not need to launch another variant because Mountain Dew was better. People
    misguided it with the name. Coming to the quality customers like its taste and it fulfil the fun
    requirements.
    Conclusion: It shows that people like its taste and they are somehow satisfied with the point
    that it has extra suger but packaging makes it little difficult for consumer to choose as they
    think Mountain Dew has better taste than Surge, to sell this they must have to work on its shelf
    placing idea.
    The recommended testing method would be beta testing as it is the feedback of end users. We
    can change the marketing plan according to the likes and dislikes of the target audience,

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