PARIS — In 2022, the Coca-Cola Co. generated twice as much dollar value as its next four or five competitors, flexing the strength of its revenue growth management (RGM) muscle in the process, said John Murphy, president and chief financial officer of the Atlanta-based beverage manufacturer.
In a June 8 presentation at the Deutsche Banke dbAccess Global Consumer Conference in Paris Mr. Murphy described Coca-Cola’s impact on value creation for its customers as a “humongous number” and one that “brings home the impact over many years of driving this equation.”
On the flip side, the number of people who are actually buying a beverage when they go shopping is “a shockingly low number,” Mr. Murphy said.
“I think the last number I saw was somewhere in the 6% to 7% range on average,” he said.
What this low number suggests, Mr. Murphy said, is that there is an opportunity to better engage with consumers at the point of purchase. He said there are lots of ways to be more effective, both online and offline.
“At the end of the day, it ultimately comes down, I think, to understanding better the occasions that people want beverages for, being able to segment the market in a much more granular way,” Mr. Murphy said. “We often talk about countries as if everybody behaves the exact same way in every part of the country. And nothing could be further from the truth. So (being) able to segment. And then with that understanding, offering a range of price pack propositions that ultimately meet what allocation demands.”
Providing more color on RGM, Mr. Murphy offered the following example.
“If you go to buy your meat and you place, let’s say, 1.25-liter of Coke with a picture of the barbecue, the chances of you engaging with that shopper go all the way up,” he explained. “And if you understand who they are, then they pack your offering, if it’s the right one. You generate a greater degree of transaction, one small example. But if you multiply that by many, you get to see, I think, the power behind the whole RGM world.”
