SRJ Marketing Communications

The beloved companies Pepsi-Cola and Coca-Cola are the dominating forces in the beverage industry. It started out as a war between the popular fizzy, golden-brown fluid products, Pepsi and Coke, and eventually expanded into flavors like Sprite, Orange Soda and 7-Up. Even still, in the past decade, both companies have further diversified their offerings with juices, energy drinks and sports quenchers. While the two enormous soda companies have virtually acquired all of their smaller contenders, people have made millions by considering the “un-cola.”

Have you heard of Odwalla? The company was started by three kids who made juice with a second hand juicer and sold it from the back of their Volkswagen. The company was acquired by Coca-Cola in 2001 for 181 Million dollars! If these guys had tried to create a “better” coke or a Pepsi cola with more efficient operation management, would they have found this kind of success? Don’t think so.

I always tell my clients, build your own ladder to top-of-the-mind awareness instead of trying to play push and shove with the industry giants. If you’re business is selling cola, you are a pee wee baseball team playing against the Yankees and the Red Sox.  Instead of playing in the big leagues, give your customers something your larger competitors can’t, or something they haven’t thought of yet.

Try these things:

1. Ask yourself and others: Does my business have a competitive advantage?
2. Re-assess your resources and capabilities: What can I do with what I have?
3. Create an “un-cola”: How can I reposition or change my product/service to give it a new edge?

Ask someone outside your company what new things could be done with the assets your company already has. At SRJ Marketing Communications, our goal is to see your business succeed. This could through creating advertisements and public relations schedules, or it could mean helping you find your “un-cola”. Give us a visit today and we’ll point you in the right direction.