An empirical investigation of the strategic marketing practices of the soft drink industry in Kenya.

Abstract

The first objective of the study was to identify the strategic marketing practices followed by the soft drink industry in Kenya. The second objective was to assess the relative importance of the strategic marketing practices used by the soft drink companies. To facilitate the study the population of interest included all the soft drink companies operating in Kenya. There are ten companies including Coca-Cola bottling partners. A partially structured questionnaire was personally administered to two top managers in each company. The target was to administer two questionnaires to each plant so as to get twenty respondents. In the end however, the researcher managed to get fifteen respondents. The results showed that the strategic marketing practices applied in the soft drink industry in Kenya are promotion strategies with emphasis on advertising, sales promotion, personal selling and Brand public relations in that order; distribution (Place) strategies with emphasis on kiosks network and supermarkets; pricing strategic and product strategies in that order. The above results should be viewed and adopted in the light of the limitations of the study which include small sample size, time and resource constraints and nonparticipation of two Bottling Companies.