Founded in 1886 in Atlanta, CocaCola Company is the worlds leading manufacturer, marketer and distributor of nonalcoholic beverage concentrates

and syrups, used to produce more than 230 beverage brands. It is also the worlds most inclusive brand and company.It has already ventured regionally out of Atlanta to other states of United States since the late19th century and its signature contour bottle was first manufactured in the early 20th century todistinguish themselves and assuring the genuine Coca-Cola. Though the company grew rapidlyand roared into some European countries during the 1900s, its presence worldwide grew swiftlyonly after World War II.Year after year, the company has been discovering new foreign markets to bring higher profits asto fulfill its ultimate obligation to provide consistently attractive returns to the owners of thecompany and to enlarge its customer base in order to achieve economics of scale. Due to strongcompetition with Pepsi-Cola, Coca-Cola wants to reduce its dependence on United Statesmarket, which is their similar domestic market, as to reduce its risk and increase its globalmarket share by going international. Presently, the company has already reached six billionconsumers in nearly two hundred countries.Coca-Cola Company has been very successful in international marketing effort. Aggressiveadvertising, branding and market segmentation have played an important part in the success. Ithas portrayed itself as fun, playfulness, freedom,lifestyle and the international appeal of Coca-Cola was embodied by a 1971 commercial, where a group of young people from all over the world to a hilltop in Italy to sing Ill like to buy the world a Coke. The company has been sponsoring big events, like Olympics, Sea Games, FIFA Cup,International Film Festivals all over the world to create awareness, credibility and to brand itself as world-class company. It also makes big donations to organizations, charities and involvementin the communities. These activities have aided Coca-Cola in creating a positive image and consumers perception toward the company. Though the company makes the world its target market, segmenting by diverse consumerpreferences would still required to help Coca-Cola to serve the consumers better. As differentsegments of different countries have various preferences or cultures, Coca-Cola tried to expandwith new flavors, brands and even reduced the sugar contents in its Coke, to suit all the differentsegments. This often increases the acceptance of new drinks that are specially designed for them.Coca-Cola entered foreign markets in various ways. The most common modes of entry are directexporting, licensing and franchising.Besides beverages and their special syrups, Coca-Cola also directly exports its merchandise tooverseas distributors and companies. Other than exporting, the company markets internationallyby licensing bottlers around the world and supplying them with the syrup needed to produce theproduct.

There are different types of franchising. The type that is used by Coca-Cola Company ismanufacturersponsored wholesaler franchise system. It is very comparable to licensing but theonly difference is that the finished products are sold to the retailers in local market.Foreign environment factors have influenced the CocaColas strategies in internationalmarketing. Culture has a tremendous effect on peoples preferences and perception. Language is one of the aspects of culture that marketers must take care of, in term of translating productname, slogans and promotional messages so as not to convey the wrong meaning. Coca-Cola didnot look much into this aspect when entering into the markets of countries like China and Taiwanas the literal translation of CocaCola in Chinese characters mean, bite the wax tadpole. Political structure and legal considerations also have impinged on CocoCola Companys strategies. Governments of some Arab nations boycotted CocaColas products due to a political dispute and discontented with the company for maintaining distributors in Israel. Changes are necessary in international marketing for consumers products, as it is important thatthe products suit ones taste, preferences and fulfill ones needs. Coca -Cola has continuedchanging, improving and developing new drinks to appeal to local tastes.After discovering that Coke did not appeal as much to Japanese consumers, Coca-Coladeveloped over 30 new drinks for the Japanese market, which inclusive of Asian tea, English tea,coffee and fermentedmilk drink.In China, Coca-Cola has also begun the similar strategy of introducing beverages developed

forthe taste buds of local market. It launched a fruit juice drink called Tian Yu Di(Heaven andEarth) specifically for the Chinese market with planning of introducing the market with aChinese iced tea and soy milk drink.Being flexible and will ing to change to satisfy consumers needs, has enabled Coca -Cola toexploit the economies of scale that was gained by its global marketing and at the same timemaking its products appeal to local taste, which these have earned the company an enormousprofits quarterly.As Coca-Cola has expanded over the decades or even nearly a century, the company hasbenefited from the various cultural insights and perspectives of the societies in which business isdone. No doubt of the remarkable experience it has, it is still very committed to local markets, topaying attention to what people from different cultures and backgrounds like to drink, and whereand how they like to drink it, to remain competitive and to develop more new drinks to satisfy itsmarkets.Now, the estimated brand equity of Coca-Cola is $84billion, market share of more than 50percent in beverage industry globally and about 70 percent of its income comes from countriesoutside United States. Every 10 seconds, 126,000 people in the whole world, choose to reach outfor one of The CocaCola Company brands, and it is the companys mission to make that choice exiting and satisfying,every single time.