Marketing is expensive. For example, a 30-second ad spot during the annual NFL Super Bowl costs about $5 million. Yet, firms must do marketing otherwise even the best products in the world can go unnoticed. But firms can go broke doing marketing. These are reasons why marketing is a key business function and an important issue in strategy implementation. This exercise can give you experience comparing and contrasting Coca-Cola’s marketing expenditures versus two major rivals: PepsiCo and Dr Pepper Snapple. Analysis in this regard can provide guidance on whether to increase or decrease Coca-Cola’s marketing expenditures.

1. Step 1Go online to Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and Dr Pepper Snapple websites at the respective Investor Relations page and download the three Form 10Ks for the respective firms.
2. Step 2Look in the Table of Contents to each Form 10K to find the pages that reveal the three firms’ marketing or advertising expenditures.
3. Step 3Prepare a comparative data table to consolidate this information.
4. Step 4Prepare a report to suggest implications for Coca-Cola in terms of marketing or advertising expenditures going forward as needed to implement strategies.

Organizational structure matters because being well organized is vital for success in all aspects of business (and personal) endeavors. This exercise gives you experience developing an existing organizational chart for a company, and based on the chapter guidelines, proposing a new and improved design for a firm. Rarely do companies publicly provide an organizational chart, but nearly all publicly held firms provide a list of their top executives in the annual Form 10K, as does Coca-Cola. Based on that document, Coca-Cola’s top management team is as follows:

1. Muhtar Kent, Chairman of the Board of Directors and Chief Executive Officer
2. Alexander M. Douglas, Jr., EVP and President of Coca-Cola North America
3. Irial Finan, EVP and President, Bottling Investments Group
4. John Murphy, President of the Asia Pacific Group
5. James Quincey, President and Chief Operating Officer
6. Alfredo Rivera, President of the Latin America Group
7. Brian Smith, President of the Europe, Middle East and Africa Group
8. Clyde C. Tuggle, SVP and Chief Public Affairs and Communications Officer
9. Kathy N. Waller, EVP and Chief Financial Officer
10. Marcos de Quinto, EVP and Chief Marketing Officer
11. Ceree Eberly, SVP and Chief People Officer
12. Bernhard Goepelt, SVP, General Counsel and Chief Legal Counsel
13. Julie Hamilton, SVP and Chief Customer and Commercial Leadership Officer
14. Brent Hastie, SVP, Strategy and Planning
15. Ed Hays, PhD, SVP and Chief Technical Officer
16. Barry Simpson, SVP and Chief Information Officer of the Company