The huge sales of Pepsi naturally attracted the attention of its competitor Coca-Cola, and the president of Coca-Cola called a meeting of management.

There were dozens of bottles of Pepsi on the conference table.

They have never taken Pepsi seriously, but Pepsi's recent amazing performance has forced them to take it seriously.

The president glanced at everyone and said in a deep voice:

"In the last two weeks, Pepsi sold 10 million bottles, which is ten times the previous sales volume. Affected by the surge in Pepsi sales, our sales in the past two weeks have dropped significantly, to only 18.6 million bottles, a drop of more than 30%."

The markets of the two companies are highly overlapping. As PepsiCo's sales increase, it will naturally eat into Coca-Cola's market.

"Their sales this week are still booming. Although we haven't compiled the statistics yet, we estimate that their sales may be better than the previous two weeks. However, our sales are still declining. If this continues, I'm afraid we will be surpassed in no time."

Being surpassed by the copycat Pepsi was very difficult for everyone at Coca-Cola to accept. You have to know that last month, just last month, Pepsi was begging Coca-Cola to acquire them.

The president pointed to the Pepsi on the table.

"They changed the packaging and sales strategy. The product is here. We all need to study it carefully and find a way to deal with it."

An executive picked up a bottle of Pepsi.

"The packaging is the same as ours, and the bottle shape is the same. It's just that the bottle cap design has been changed and a lucky draw has been added~~Bang."

As he spoke, the man gently pulled the pull ring and the Coke opened easily.

Don’t mention it.

The feeling of being able to open it with just a light pull is really comfortable.

Then he saw a line of small words under the bottle cap.

"Reward: $1."

"Oh, my bottle won a big prize, one dollar." The executive said excitedly, and picked up the bottle cap to show off to the people next to him.

Suddenly he felt that the atmosphere in the conference room was a little solemn.

Look up.

The executives around him were looking at him, their eyes telling him whether it was necessary to be so excited about winning a dollar. The president was also looking at him, with a hint of anger in his eyes.

This executive was very smart and immediately said:

"I think that only by carefully feeling the strengths of our competitors and understanding how they attract customers can we find ways to deal with them. What do you think?"

After hearing this explanation, the president's expression softened a lot.

"What do you feel?" the president asked.

The senior official immediately said, "I've seen the Pepsi-Cola ad on ABC TV. It's very creative. They changed their promotional strategy. Instead of focusing on taste and cheapness, they focused on youth and vitality, positioning Pepsi-Cola as a drink for young people."

"Also, the advert mainly promotes the pull-ring bottle cap, which is different from the main focus of Coca-Cola's promotion, which is very impressive."

"Anything else?" the president asked.

"This is Pepsi's most amazing idea. In the past, Pepsi advertised itself as cheap, offering double the amount of cola for the same amount of money. We advertised that their cola is for the lower class, and that it is black cola. That trick worked very well at the time, and it further suppressed Pepsi's reputation."

"This time it's not like that. They use the strategy of offering customers another bottle to make them feel like they have received a surprise, which is more attractive than a price cut."

"This way, a lot of money can be saved for raw materials, and this money can be invested in raffles. Don't underestimate the prizes of ten or twenty cents. Children don't have much money to begin with. They care about these prizes very much, and they can also have the fun of winning."

The president nodded and thought the executive's analysis was good.

The executive breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the president nod in agreement with what he said, and he was able to fool the person into thinking he had gotten away with it.

"Tell me, how should we respond to Pepsi's strategy this time and attract customers back?"

The president looked at the executives and asked.

"Increase advertising investment, put ads on TV, and step up the promotion of Coca-Cola. I think TV advertising has a significant impact on Coke." said a senior executive.

The president nodded. Everyone could think of this suggestion.

"Let's also have pull-tab and lucky draw activities," said another senior manager.

Someone shook his head and said, "Pepsi has definitely applied for a patent. If we want to use the pull-tab, Pepsi will definitely sue us. I think they have also applied for a patent for the lucky draw."

"The lucky draw can actually be conducted in other ways. As long as the format is different, they won't be able to sue us," someone said.

"Then what method?"

"Oh~~ I haven't thought of it yet."

Many people looked at this guy with disdain, it turned out that he was just talking nonsense.

“Bang, bang, bang~!”

Someone picked up a few more Coke bottles, opened them, and studied the labels on them, muttering, "This lottery event is really creative. I wonder who came up with it. Not only the young people who bought the Coke, but even I find it very interesting. I can't help but want to open a few more."

The president of Coca-Cola looked at the bottle cap in his hand and said, "I got the news that this idea should be the idea of ​​Jon Hardy, the owner of the Hardy Group. He is now the largest shareholder of PepsiCo."

"The owner of ABC TV, Jon Hardy?"

"Yes, that's him."

"No wonder, Mr. Jon Hardy always comes up with some brilliant ideas. The Las Vegas casino lottery event has attracted gamblers from all over the country. It is said that the advertising fees on Las Vegas TV have exceeded those of the other two major TV stations." someone said.

"It's no surprise that Jon Hardy wanted to do the prize-giving event."

The president looked at these guys angrily, "I asked you to study how to deal with the opponent, not to discuss how powerful the opponent is."

Everyone fell silent immediately.

At this moment, the guy who was scolded by the president for winning the first dollar suddenly thought of something and said excitedly, "President, I have an idea."

"Tell me about it."

"We can also hold a prize-giving event, but of course the format will be very different from Pepsi's. We will still use the same bottle caps as before, but with patterns on the back."

"My idea is to put the 12 zodiac signs on the back, such as Aries, Taurus, Gemini, and Virgo, and not directly draw the prize. The rule is that if you collect all 12 zodiac signs, you can exchange them for a $1 grand prize."

The president frowned slightly and said, "Collect all 12 zodiac signs to get a $1 prize. Last year, Coca-Cola sold 600 million bottles, and one-twelfth of that is 50 million. Do you want Coca-Cola to pay 50 million in prize money to redeem the prize?"

The executive immediately shook his head and said, "It doesn't have to be that many. First, not every bottle cap has a pattern. It can be set at one-third or one-quarter."

"There is a year on the bottle cap, and only the prizes from that year can be redeemed. For example, if it says Taurus on the top and the year 1948 on the bottom, it can only be redeemed this year. It will be useless in 1949."

"And to redeem our prizes, you need to collect a complete set of 12 constellation charts. We can release more of some and control the quantity of others. For example, we can only release 1 million Virgo bottle caps. Even if all of them are redeemed, the prize money will only be 1 million."

"My idea is to choose two constellations and only release 500,000 each year, which means there is only a maximum of 500,000 prizes, and the two areas will not overlap, so even if someone claims the prize, it will be difficult to collect all of them, and the prize will be less than this number. I estimate that the prize is only 200,000 to 300,000 each year."

When the president heard that the bonus was only NT$200,000 or NT$300,000, he thought it was completely acceptable and asked, "Do you have any other ideas?"

It's not easy to come up with a genius idea.

Especially with Hardy's award-winning idea in front of us, it would be illegal to touch it, which makes it more difficult than coming up with a single idea.

Even Hardy's creativity was the most quintessential one selected from the thousands of creativity in later generations. It is almost impossible for these people to surpass Hardy's creativity.

Others were speechless for a moment.

The president knew that this was probably the end of it, so he adjourned the meeting and went to report his idea to the chairman. After listening to the president's idea, the chairman thought that the 12 zodiac sign prize-giving event was great and asked Coca-Cola to go ahead with it.

In the next few days,

Coca-Cola has launched a new commercial that will air on NBC and CBS.

Yes,

Coca-Cola did not choose ABC, the TV station with the highest ratings, but chose the other two. The first reason was that Hardy was the owner of ABC and Pepsi, and Coca-Cola was unwilling to give the advertising fees to ABC.

Another reason is that Coca-Cola has close ties with NBC and CBS television stations and their respective conglomerates, so it is only natural for Coca-Cola to take care of the business of close partners.

'12 Constellations' cola is officially launched.

Many people were originally loyal users of Coca-Cola, but they were attracted by Pepsi's lottery event. Now that Coca-Cola also has a lottery event, many people immediately ran to buy Coca-Cola.

The card collecting game is actually a very attractive activity.

Many people are addicted to collecting card games. Even in later generations, the sales of some cards are very popular, such as Ultraman. Almost every family with boys has this thing.

There is even a dedicated collectible card game company. A 20th anniversary edition "Blue-Eyes White Dragon" Yu-Gi-Oh pure gold card is priced at hundreds of thousands.

Coca-Cola's sales strategy was very successful and it quickly regained most of the market, while Pepsi's sales dropped significantly.

The ups and downs made PepsiCo President Walter Mack very uncomfortable, so he came to Hardy to report the situation.

Hardy picked up the Coca-Cola bottle cap on the table and took a look. It was still a metal bottle cap, and the logo on the top remained the same, but there was a beautiful constellation picture on the back.

"It's quite exquisite." said Hardy.

Walter Mac said anxiously, "Mr. Hardy, Coca-Cola launched this card collection and redemption activity, which attracted a large number of customers. Now Pepsi's sales have dropped significantly. What do you think we should do?"

"Have you come up with anything?" Hardy asked.

Walter Mac shook his head and said helplessly: "The management also held a meeting, but they haven't come up with any good solutions for the time being. They just want to continue to increase the intensity of the lottery and increase publicity."

Hardy shook his head. "These methods are not good. They will lead to vicious competition. PepsiCo has invested more, but the effect may not be much better."

"That's what we analyzed, so we came to ask you if you have any good solutions."

Hardy smiled and said, "There is indeed a way to deal with Coca-Cola. Have you noticed that there are two patterns on the bottle caps?"

Walter Mac was stunned. He had not paid attention to these things before. He turned over all the bottle caps and sorted them out one by one, and found that two constellations were missing.

"Missing virgins and twins?" Walter Mac looked at Hardy and said.

"That's right." Hardy nodded.