"Taste the Feeling"

As I mentioned in my first blog post, I recently followed Marketing Dive, a Twitter account that provides daily marketing news on various topics. One of their recent tweets about Coca-Cola interested me and reminded me of a few marketing concepts. The article discusses how Coca-Cola is recently trying to unify all of their different products to enable a "one brand" approach. Their new tagline for this campaign is "Taste the Feeling", which I think is clever and intriguing. Coca-Cola has always geared their marketing efforts to show that drinking their soda can be a hedonic, valuable experience. Focusing on the experience that comes from drinking the soda helps them establish a connection with consumers, and also allows consumers to connect with the brand.

The campaign will be released all through 2016 on an international level. The CMO of Coca-Cola, arcos de Quinto, expressed that their previous campaign called "Open Happiness" didn't capture the simple pleasures of drinking cola. Although I found this campaign to be creative and interactive, the brand has experienced a decline in revenue growth in recent quarters. Personally, I think the decline may be due to the fact that consumers are moving toward healthier lifestyles. I know that for myself personally, I have completely cut out soda from my diet because of how unhealthy it is. If Coca-Cola brings back the simple, old-fashioned idea of drinking soda on a hot day (as mentioned in the article), they might increase their revenue. Like we have learned in prior marketing courses, brands have to have a story behind all of their marketing strategies, because that will ultimately lead to consumer engagement and brand equity.

The "anthem" for this new campaign connects Coca-Cola with a variety of words/activities, such as "stories with Coca-Cola", and "Coca-Cola with smiles". I think this is very clever because it ties into the overall campaign idea of tasting the feeling and connects back to the emotional and hedonic value of the product. I think by also showing these phrases, it will generate a lot of brand association. For instance, people will think of Coca-Cola when they hear or experience certain words/things.

I think it is very smart of Coke to have this campaign represent all of their products, as opposed to having separate marketing strategies for Diet Coke, Coke Zero, etc. This will prevent product cannibalism, because no one Coke product is being marketed more than another. In addition, it will strengthen the overall brand name. Although Coca-Cola is a well-known, international brand with a strong reputation, they need to continue to reinforce it. Bringing all of their products together and promoting them as one brand will strengthen brand equity and brand value.

Overall, this new campaign seems like it will be successful in the months to come. I can't say that I will go out and start drinking soda again as a result of this campaign, but it definitely makes me view the Coca-Cola brand in a positive light.