Coca-Cola makes Bucharest into regional centre

Coca-Cola Romania, the local branch of the US soft drinks group The Coca-Cola Company, is to become the regional centre for the company’s operations in the Balkans. This will mean that the marketing for all Coca-Cola products in the Balkan region will be coordinated from Bucharest. “Merging the marketing activities of the seven countries was done to make operations more efficient. This is possible because tastes and consumption habits are very similar, allowing for joint marketing campaigns in over 60% of cases,” said marketing manager Irina Ionescu. Coca-Cola is the latest on a list of multinationals – Procter & Gamble, Unilever and Avon – that has decided to choose Bucharest for its regional headquarters. The new division will include Romania, Bulgaria, Moldova, Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. The new structure will affect marketing operations but not production and distribution, which are run by Coca-Cola Hellenic Bottling Company Romania. Prior the change, Balkan operations were divided into two regions: the Black Sea Region (Romania, Bulgaria and Moldova) and the Adriatic and Balkans Region (Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina). ZF