Coca-Cola and Their Great Marketing

I'm sure we are all familiar with the Coca-Cola brand. Introduced in the late 19th century, it is one of the world's most valuable and successful brands. It happens to be brought up a lot for explaining examples during some of my classes and I can see why. I decided to have a little closer look at the marketing to understand what makes them so successful.

Coca-cola being in the beverage business has a huge list of competitors some being PepsiCo, Schweppes and Bundaberg. So how do you market something like a drink, that really only has very limited functions, one being quenching thirst. The Coca-Cola brand positioned themselves to be more than just your average carbonated beverage, they have trained the brain to associate the brand with positive feelings. Feelings of happiness, relaxation, friends and fun. Rather than selling the Coca-Cola drink as a product on its own, the brand sells an abstract concept of positive feelings.

Let's have a look at how the Coca-Cola brand approaches advertising. Initially, the brand used traditional print, TV and physical advertising, until the adoption of a greater multi-channel method. This included promotion via Coke tv (a YouTube channel), a social media hashtag, the development of a Coke emoji and the 'Share a Can' campaign to name a few.

I thought I'd mention some of the work done here in Australia as well. The marketing director of the South Pacific at the time and her team were given free reign to develop a campaign for the summer of 2013. The goals were to 'make headlines and capture attention', aiming to strengthen the bond between the brand and Australian young adults and share moments with the real and virtual worlds. And so the 'Share a Coke' campaign was established.

This campaign consisted of using 150 most popular names in Australia to put on the bottles and cans instead of the Coca-Cola branding. The campaign had an immediate positive reaction, reaching 42% of the population. That summer, more that 250 million bottles and cans were sold sold in the then Australia that was populated with around 23 million people. The campaign gained lots of traction and positivity, it was then expanded across the world, using over 17,000 names. This then included generic nicknames and titles being an invitation to share a coke with a broader audience.

So what made Coca-Cola successful? Using the global trends of sharing and self-expression in an emotional way, this campaign was brought out at eye-level to the consumer. It used the element of names which we use as individuals to identify ourselves with. Engaging with customers on a personal level has contributed to the Coca-Cola brand becoming one to the most recognised, most valuable and most successful brands in the world.

What are your thoughts on Coca-Cola? Anything you think they did great or could have done better?

Thank you for reading :)

Stay safe!