Coke to boost visibility in cities

By Duane D. Stanford

Bloomberg News

Coca-Cola Co., the world’s largest soft-drink maker, will saturate more U.S. urban areas with its red logos and banners next year in a strategy intended to reverse volume declines.

The company plans to double the number of so-called boost zones from 50 North American locations this year, Coca-Cola executives said in recent interviews. In these targeted areas, Coca-Cola and its biggest bottler work directly with retailers to make Coke brands more visible on everything from redesigned menus to visors worn by fast-food workers.

“We view this as a long-term, sustainable program without a completion date,” said Caren Pasquale Seckler, an assistant vice president in charge of the Coca-Cola brand and trademark strategy.

Coca-Cola and PepsiCo Inc., the world’s second-largest soft-drink maker, both lost share of the U.S. soda market in 2008 as soft-drink sales fell for the fourth straight year, according to industry newsletter Beverage Digest. Coca-Cola’s total beverage sales volume in North America fell 2 percent during the first nine months of this year. Europe declined 1 percent, while Latin America grew 6 percent.

“Years ago, the brands did so well you didn’t have to concern yourself to a certain degree to this level of detail because the growth was just easy,” Lauren Torres, an analyst with HSBC Holdings PLC in New York, said. “It’s a more complicated business than it used to be.”

Coca-Cola and its biggest bottler, Coca-Cola Enterprises Inc., brought the boost zone idea from Europe, where the effort started five years ago.