You Wouldn't Believe the Size of Coca-Cola's Advertising Budget

Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO) sells some of the most widely-used products on the planet. The soda giant collects a profit from delivering 1.9 billion servings -- or about 3% of all beverages consumed around the world -- every day.

The company has been in business for more than a century and controls four of the top five sparkling beverage brands: Coca-Cola, Diet Coke, Fanta, and Sprite. You might think that dominant position would make management's job easy when it comes to marketing. However, maintaining Coke's unique branding is a massive undertaking, and it is getting more expensive by the year. 

Coke's $4 billion ad outlay in 2016 represented just a slight uptick over the prior year. Yet total revenue declined, increasing the size of that line item as a percentage of sales to 10%. This spending has been trending higher in both absolute terms and with respect to the revenue base. In fiscal 2012, Coke was allocating $3.3 billion to advertising, or 7% of its sales.

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Source: Fool.com