Mr. Albert Baladi This is Me

 Web References

1. 1. Tradeline 5/19/95

   www.awo.net/newspub/pubs/trade - [Cached]

   Published on: 8/27/1999   Last Visited: 1/30/2001

   Mr. Albert Baladi, Director of Marketing for the Middle East and North Africa of Pepsi-Cola International states : The number one soft drink is a position the company has held for more than 40 years. We are now setting new industry trends to stay at the forefront of market evolution, where huge demand for youth-oriented products, especially soft drinks, is developing fast. We are the number one beverage company in the Middle East. Our share of the Saudi Arabia market is over 83 % ... We nevertheless welcome increasing competition and as such we are gearing up for the challenges of the next decade, continually expanding our product range to meet new customer needs... As a market that promises so much, the GCC is expected to remain a battleground for innovative strategies and aggressive marketing..
   
   The Coca-Cola Company, whose history in the Middle East goes back many years, has recently re-established its business in a number of markets in the region after years of being on the Arab boycott list. Coca-Cola's market research asserts that the company and its bottlers are making substantial, long-term capital and expertise investments to develop a modern soft drink infrastructure.
   ...
   Mr. Baladi says, Pepsi-Cola is the number one soft drink in the Arab world and football is the number one sport. Our policy for the last forty years has been to support Arab football wherever we can. In 1994, Pepsi was the main sponsor of the Gulf Cup Tournament in Abu Dhabi and the AGCC Club and Youth team competitions.
   
   Coca-Cola also sees the benefits from sponsoring soccer teams and its sponsorship of the 1994 Saudi Arabian soccer team at the World Cup is an example of their high profile marketing strategy, cites the IMES study. In Egypt, Pepsi-Cola uses locally produced television commercials with Egyptian actors while Coca-Cola dubs its international ads into Arabic, notes Business Middle East.
   
   U.S. Commercial officials state that new entries like Snapple and similar fruit and tea punches are facing some resistance in expanding the market for juices and coolers because tradition is for tea to be hot and juice to be fresh.