The average investment allocation on the Internet is increasing every year as brands need to explore new ways to reach consumers. This article examines how the Internet complements traditional communication strategy by focusing on the company that has dominated the soft drink market during the last 130 years. A comparative analysis of the strategy conducted by Coca-Cola across three regionsthe US, Europe, and Asiais presented. The consequences of each strategy on brand loyalty are also discussed.

While 19.4% of marketers polled for PROMO's 2004 Industry Trends Report said interactive communication was among their top three spending tactics; that number increased to 24.4% of those surveyed for 2005. Nearly 60% of the marketers opined to allocate a fair portion of their budget (current year) to interactive initiatives. Henceforth, there is an increase of around 6% average allocation compared to 2004. Most of the money is from the traditional advertising budget, which was shifted towards the interactive marketing side (Promo 2006).

The most visible activity of interactive communications on the Internet is the website of the firm (Karson and Korganondar 2001). Some customers visit websites looking for specific information about products and services in order to make a decision. Other customers visit them to get in touch with the company or to get a virtual experience with the product (Klein 2003; McMillan and Hwang 2002; Smith and Sivakumar 2004). As a result, marketers are increasingly investing in this marketing tool and researchers have stated that websites represent the future of marketing communications on the Internet (Ghose and Dou 1998; Hwang et al. 2003).

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