You've seen this fight before: Coke versus Pepsi. And chances are, you have your own taste preference between the two fierce rivals. But this time, it's a different battle. We decided to pair these two heavyweights for a matchup using Marketing Grader, to find out which soft drink does marketing better. The newly launched marketing.grader.com provides an analysis of your whole marketing funnel – and it lets you compare yourself to your competition. So let’s see who comes out on top in this beverage battle!
Inbound Links: Coca-Cola Wins
Coca-Cola throws a powerful punch right from the start, with more than double the inbound linking domains than Pepsi. Over 12,000 sites have links to coca-cola.com, while fewer than 6,000 link to pepsi.com. This a major factor in all marketing competitions, as search engines put serious weight on this metric. Every link to your website is a vote of confidence. In this round, Coca-cola is the decided champ.
Facebook Business Page Fans: Coca-Cola Wins!
Although Pepsi has a strong following with nearly 7 million fans, Coca-Cola has over 36 million fans on its Facebook business page. That’s a difference of over 29 million people. Pepsi, it’s time to step it up! You’re already 0 for 2.
Replying to Followers on Twitter: It’s a Draw!
@pepsi and @cocacola are both fierce competitors in this category. The two beverages both frequently tweet to individuals, rather than blabbing endlessly about themselves. They understand that Twitter is about having a dialogue with others. Nicely done!
Mobile Optimized Website: Coca-Cola Wins!
Looks like we've got a knockout. Coca-Cola.com wins again because it has a mobile version that’s accessible to those visitors using smartphones. (I also visited pepsi.com on my smartphone and, while the site resized to fit my screen, it took a painfully long time to load and did not offer the easy navigation that Cola-Cola did.) Pepsi, you've gotta step it up! 43% of all phones are smartphones, and 87% of them use it to access the internet. And these numbers aren't exactly getting smaller!
Marketing Champ: Coca-Cola!
We can't all agree on who wins a blind taste test. But when it comes to marketing, Coca-Cola is the clear champion. It doesn't just take cute cuddly polar bears to make this happen. (Although I'm sure that helps.) It takes a range of smart marketing moves, including generating inbound links, engaging with fans and followers, and making your site accessible across various clients.
How do you think you would do in a battle against your competition?
Inbound Marketing Blog Feed
Denise Kilmer 4:09 PM on December 06, 2011
If they are kicking butt, then why so low a total score for each? You just made me feel a whole lot better about my score!
Christopher Barger 4:25 PM on December 06, 2011
Are we really still using "number of fans" as a viable metric for measuring Facebook success? When eMarketer studies show that more than half of people who "fan" a brand then end up hiding that brand's information from their news feed... and when we know that the "monthly actives" of most every page are nowhere near the number of fans listed... it sure seems to me that "number of fans" is a false marker.
Yes, there's something to be said for reach... but that's like putting a commercial on during Sunday Night Football and just assuming that since 25 million people watched the Packers-Saints, that MUST mean that all of them saw your commercial. True reach isn't really indicated by number of fans... that's just a lazy marketer's number to impress their bosses.
I don't have a dog in this hunt and don't care whether Coke or Pepsi has better marketing. But I'm instantly suspect of any measurement system that places weight on "number of fans" as a metric of success.
Drewry 4:33 PM on December 06, 2011
Now we know who the king of soft drinks is!
Drewry 4:34 PM on December 06, 2011
LOL @ what Christopher from Forbes said too!
karen schweitzer 4:52 PM on December 06, 2011
So, what can you tell us about the beer market?
Greg Linnemanstons 5:27 PM on December 06, 2011
Love the fun of the big brand challenge, but the reality is that inbound marketing doesn't merit the importance to 2 of the most familiar CPG brands on the planet, and the new tool doesn't really begin to measure their overall marketing effectiveness, since it's so very much more than online.
But it does make me feel really good about my brand score, so I'll take that and run with it!
Amber Cebull 5:28 PM on December 06, 2011
@Chris - I think its more of a social effort calculation than a competition of fans. The blog writer probably shouldn't have phrased it the way they did, but it doesn't change that the massive discrepancy in fans says a lot about the social efforts of Pepsi versus Coke - or maybe more about Coke's fans being more social?
I think we know that Hubspot has preached many times before that fan numbers aren't a great metric for measurement. However, if you're choosing between a brand that has 3 fans on Facebook versus 1,000 - you might view that the latter has a little more credibility.
Christina 6:02 AM on December 07, 2011
Coco Cola are winning because they taste better ;)
Can't remember when I last saw an advert for Pepsi. Actually I can't remember when I last saw any advert!
-Christina
rump 7:29 AM on December 07, 2011
Wonder what the comparison would look like with offline marketing.
Christopher Barger 9:17 AM on December 07, 2011
@Amber: a fair point, and I don't dispute that Coke has greater potential reach or that a 29M difference is significant. That said... 7 million FB fans is hardly "3." I don't think it says much about the social efforts of either brand; I think it's probably more likely chalked up to Coke being far more established globally, and the brand equity from traditional marketing/advertising efforts (how many years in a row has Coke won the "most valuable brand" title in those branding surveys?). They have a significant advantage from their non-social efforts as well as a larger market audience.
I'm not slagging Coke -- and I realize that I sound like a Pepsi fanboi here. ;-) I'm not. (I actually drink Coke more often.) I just think it's somewhat dubious to observe social efforts in a vacuum or to chalk up an advantage in fan size as purely due to social efforts or a perceived more social nature of their fan base. There's traditional marketing at play too.
Thanks for the return perspective, though, and making me think more deeply about my response. Have a good one!