Facebook as a Strategic Marketing Tools for Understanding the Consumer Behavior of Coca-Cola by using K-Mean Cluster Analysis and Competitive Profile Matrix Model

Abstract

Over the last few years, many companies have integrated social media and social networking sites leading to a deep transformation of the organizational models and changing the companies’ marketing dynamics. This study aims to recognize the consumer behavior of Coca-Cola, categorize the respondents by using K-Mean clustering and to perform competitive profile matrix of Coca-Cola brand. Firm’s social media effort in Facebook between April, 2019 and March, 2020 is analyzed through SPSS version 16.0 software. It is found that firm has average of 0.296 post per day, 118.5 number of likes per post per day, 1.384 number of comments per post per day and 1.558 number of shares per post per day in its official Facebook page. Sample of 385 respondents are categorized into four clusters by K-Mean clustering using two variables: usage rate and preference. Cluster 1 is labelled consumers with high usage rate and high preference of Coca-Cola, whereas cluster 2 is labelled consumers with high usage rate and low preference of Coca-Cola. Cluster 3 is labelled consumers with low usage rate and high preference of Coca-Cola and cluster 4 is labelled with low usage rate and low preference of Coca-Cola. Majority of respondents are categorized under cluster 3 while minority of respondents are categorized under cluster 2. It is found that net promotion score of these respondents is 159. K-Mean clustering shows that there is strong association between usage rate and cluster membership with Chi-Square of 269.2565 and Phi Coefficient of 0.8363 respectively. Taste, color and ingredient, branding, availability of product and product and size variety are the five critical success factors for evaluating Competitive Profile Matrix of Coca-Cola product. It is found that the taste has the highest weightage of 22.77% amongst these factors whereas the product and size variety have the least weightage of 16.12%. Competitors chosen for analysis are Fanta, Sprite, Pepsi, Miranda and Dew. Participants evaluate each brand scoring from 1(low) to 5(high). The ranking of these products from first to last are Coca-Cola, Dew, Sprite, Fanta, Pepsi and Miranda. This study has both theoretical and managerial implications. From theoretical point of view, this study helps to bridge the gap related to measure companies’ social media efforts. From a managerial perspective, this study is useful to compare the Coca-Cola with key competitors and helps to expand consumer awareness and brand loyalty.