Advertisement analysis of Coca-Cola

Describe about the Report for Brand Marketing of Coca Cola and Brand Storytelling.

According to Greenfield (2016), when it comes to advertising, Coca-Cola Company not only did introduce its products over the years but also it has recognized itself as a popular brand name among the youth culture. Its first slogan “Drink Coca-Cola”, a very simple one was aired in 1886, and the trend still continues today, with the current slogan being “Taste the Feeling”. Its slogans are a testament to the evolution of products, the company’s theme shifting between love, friendship, brotherhood and happiness (Hansen, 2016).

This case study takes one instance of Coca-Cola advertisement, details the storyline and analyses it from the perspective of viewers and their reactions to it. The factors and techniques are then next discussed taking into account the various content creation plans the company undertakes to create an engaging content which has the potential to go viral. It includes dynamic storytelling, making conversations, creating liquid content, content linking, and bold and creative content approach. The conclusion is drawn from the findings and explained along with relevant reasons.      

Story

In one advertisement, it shows a supermarket located under a bridge somewhere in India. The weather was sunny but hot. A guy with a good physique and in his twenties enters a supermarket wearing a sweatshirt. The supermarket primarily seems to have stocked Coca-Cola in most of its refrigerators, and the cashier was wearing a red and white uniform, similar to the company’s color scheme. He asks if there is any cold drink in the store. The cashier, a young girl, pointed the guy to the shelves where the soft drinks are located. She notices him in the security camera, takes the fancy of his likeliness and increases the fan speed. When the guy starts drinking, the girl turns up the fan on her side too, closes her eyes and tries to emulate the feeling of that guy. He presents his empty bottle on the desk; the girl gets jolted out of her dream, but she offers another bottle to the guy, insisting him to drink again. The guy reluctantly finishes the second drink as well, while the girl with her head resting on the table still had a dreamy look in her eyes and a smile indicating she does not want this to end. The ad finishes with the Coca-Cola icon along with the slogan “Taste the Feeling” on the bottom (Popescu & Otelea, 2015).

Viewer Response

As stated by Li (2015), the advertisement is clearly targeted to the youth of the current generation and is meant to instill a sense of lust, attraction, and desire to the target demographic, while portraying a cheerful mood throughout. The actors in the advertisement are both very young and are in their twenties. Seeing two young people in love is how the viewers will be able to relate themselves (Foster, 2012). Since the guy is a recognized actor from the Bollywood Industry and is quite popular among the young demographic in India, therefore the video will instantly appeal to most Indian viewers. Love and Friendship is a recurring theme among many advertisements and Coca-Cola often more than uses it and are in line with the motto of the company (Nelson & Deshpande, 2013). Coca Cola’s mission statements are, to inspire moments of happiness and optimism, refresh the world and to bring about a difference by creating values (Logan & Tindall, 2014).

As opined by Hamilton (2015), to achieve the required emotional trigger response, the ad used the company’s color scheme liberally everywhere in the video from the uniform to the product shelves. A warm color scheme used to depict a hot and sunny day, which also doubles up as feelings of happiness. Television advertisements of 30 second do no longer attract audiences of the 21^st century, and the mass media now prefers shorter stories. Few factors the company took into account while making this video are –

Creating a liquid content – it means to create a viral content which will be easily shared by social media, and its popularity will spread by word of mouth (Nguyen & Nguyen, 2015).

Making sure the content is linked – the ideas explored in the content needs to be relevant and are in aligning with the company’s brand, business objectives, and customer interests. Through this advert, the company is successful in exploring the themes it wants to communicate and spread (Wang, 2015).

 Making conversations – consumers will provide feedback to the story in various social medias if the idea of the content clicks with them (Liu & Lopez, 2016).

Dynamic Story Telling – As stated by Du Plessis (2015), one-way storytelling is passé now, and a company looking for its business growth needs to go through dynamic storytelling. This means the story can be evolved as the company interacts with customers and visitors in many mediums. Coca-Cola does this by billboard posters, fliers, etc. taking images and relevant dialogues from the story.

Techniques Used

Brave and creative approach to the content creation – Coca Cola approaches new ideas in an advertisement by following 70/20/10 strategy. 70% of content is of low risk which means the company uses the tried and tested formula which was previously successful. 20% of the content is an innovating idea to check if it would work, and rest 10% is high-risk ideas which if successful, can be tomorrow’s 20% or 70% (Gupta, 2015).

The advertisement does not depict the reality because of many reasons. The advertisements shows the fantasies of normal human to make them feel more attractive. It shows the young cashier flirting with the guy and is quite open in showing her feelings, which is not at all professional on her part and neither does that happen in real life, as Indian women are much shyer. She was wearing a red and white colored uniform, a direct reference to Coca Cola’s color scheme, which implies she is someone from the company endorsing its products. The supermarket seemed to have liberal stocks of Coca-Cola soft drinks. Yellow hue is used throughout the video because it translates to a cheerful and positive mood, and is a tried and tested formula in many movies. It is purely a fantasy video geared towards the teenagers, but it did not try to portray it realistically either. It is successful in conjuring up feelings of lust and attraction between sexes of opposite gender and giving it a happy ending which will resonate with the viewers.   

Conclusion  

This study is one such instance of many advertisements of Coca Cola, and this company is chosen because of its long culture and history with its products. The short story that has been explained tells about the instant love and attraction between a girl and a guy in a supermarket store, over a serving of the company’s soft drink, appeals to most viewers of the Indian demographic. Following the company’s marketing and content creation strategies, the story is analyzed from those perspectives, and is found that the advertisement needs to be short, the potential of being viral, and should have an engaging story and theme in aligning with the company’s objectives. The objective of the company must be satisfied for ensuring the developmental perspective of the organization. Establishment of brand image supplies value to the brand name. Coca Cola is one of the biggest soft drinks manufacturers among their competitors, which creates their brand value within the competitive market. The conclusion is drawn from the findings and is stated to be full of teenage fantasy and unrealistic compared to real life.

References

Du Plessis, C. (2015). Brand storytelling: the case of Coca-Cola’s Journey Corporate Website.

Foster, R. J. (2012). Cocaâ€ÂGlobalization. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Greenfield, S. (2016). Giving the Global High Sign: Coca-Cola Advertising of the “American Way” in Life Magazine, 1941-1947.

Gupta, V. (2015). Content Marketing: Say Something; Say It Well; Say It Often.

Hamilton, J. M. (2015). The EKOCENTER: A Case Study in Coca-Cola, Corporate Social Responsibility, and Bluewashing (Doctoral dissertation, UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA).

Hansen, J. T. (2016). Constructing a Product Brand Identity: The Case of Coca-Cola.

Liu, Y., & Lopez, R. A. (2016). The impact of social media conversations on consumer brand choices. Marketing Letters, 27(1), 1-13.

Logan, N., & Tindall, N. T. (2014). 10 Coca-Cola, Community, Diversity, and Cosmopolitanism. Ethical Practice of Social Media in Public Relations, 138.

Nelson, M. R., & Deshpande, S. (2013). The prevalence of and consumer response to foreign and domestic brand placement in Bollywood movies. Journal of Advertising, 42(1), 1-15.

Nguyen, T., & Nguyen, T. (2015). Factors that make a marketing cam-paign go viral: Case study: Campaign” Share a Coke” by Coca Cola in Vietnam.

Popescu, C., & Otelea, M. (2015). Sustainable Development–An Imperative Of Industrial Companies. Case Study: Coca-Cola Hbc Romania. Annals-Economy Series, 213-216.

Wang, M. (2015). Brief Analysis of Sports Marketing Strategy Adopted by Coca Cola Company. Asian Social Science, 11(23), 22.