Pepsi Company

This is a research paper topic suggestion on the Pepsi Company. The project will include financial data as well as its strengths and weaknesses. Pepsi Co's principle line of business and future business plans.

A good research paper on Pepsi Co wil include the following elements:

1. Give a brief overview in your research paper based on your article research of the company.
2. Find the current stock price of Pepsi Co.
3. Assess the strengths, weakness, opportunities, and threats of the company.
4. Would you recommend this company for long-term investment (Greater then 5 years )? Why or why not?
5. Compare a few ideas to it competitor Coco-cola. you can include one article on feedback of the company.

The soft drink that would come to be known as Pepsi-Cola or Pepsi started in the 1890s with a pharmacist, Caleb Bradham and would become a brand name company in 1903. Bradham made his concoction in New Bern, North Carolina, and for the first couple of years sold his product as Brad's drink before changing the name to Pepsi-Cola. There is some debate as to how the name was invented including changing the name from a local competitor, the name being an anagram of Episcopal, or the idea that he was taking advantage of the "pep" that the drink seemed to cause (no doubt because of the caffeine within it).

Like its main competitor, Coca-Cola, it was originally invented for its medicinal uses as a cure of stomach ailments. Bradham's success came after patenting the drink in 1903. For the first year, most of his sales were from selling the syrup itself but would begin to sell it mixed with carbonated water the next year. Pepsi began the high level endorsements of products by the automobile racing industry by getting race pioneer, Barney Oldfield to endorsing the drink in 1909.

Profit was good for the first several years but Pepsi ran into trouble when sugar prices soared to record heights in World War II and the company was not able to pay the prices. This forced the company into bankruptcy where it was sold to Roy Megargel in 1923. Though Megargel had high hopes for the company, just eight years later, the company was again plunged into bankruptcy. It was then that the Pepsi-Cola syrup was revamped and changed in the hopes of saving the company from oblivion.

This was the first time that Pepsi went back to the drawing board and changed in order to fit with the changes in society. It was during the Great Depression, where many other companies were going broke over night, that Pepsi actually began to make a profit again. While before, soft drink companies only sold their drinks in six ounce servings, Pepsi began to sell their as twice as much, in twelve ounce bottles, for the same price that they had originally sold their other drink, a nickel. Along with this marketing push, Pepsi took advantage of radio to advertise the campaign. This campaign nearly doubled Pepsi's profits in two years.

Several years later, Pepsi again began to realize that there was a market that no one else had even thought of. The United States social networks had begun to change radically, entering into the 1960s and body image soon became the concern of millions of adolescents. In maintaining the ideal body image, the culture had started to make a shift in nutrition. Pepsi took advantage of this new market by introducing Diet Pepsi, the nation's first diet soft drink in 1964.

Throughout the years, Pepsi's main competitor was Coca-Cola. Pepsi always undersold its competitor through the years and so in 1975, began to research the question of which cola product, the consumers actually liked better. The company set up a blind taste test between the two soft drinks and the findings were surprising. The majority of the participants picked Pepsi over Coke. The company took advantage of this and started one of their most successful marketing campaigns, the Pepsi Challenge. The company took advantage of television by making commercials showing people picking Pepsi over Coke. Many believe that the reason for most picking Pepsi over Coke was the difference in sugar content between the two sodas.