Coca Cola Music

(for maximum enjoyment- step 1: click (Is Anybody Out There) … step 2: return to this window and read)

One of the areas that interests me in marketing, is trend analysis.  A leading company that manages to capitalise on the current and future trends, is Coca Cola. With over 450 brands around the world, it is a leader in product and marketing innovation.

Coke launched a new product in March this year- Coca Cola Music. This branch of the brand aims to rival established music brands such as iTunes and Myspace. When the idea of coke as a music brand came to my attention, my initial reaction was surprise. How do they plan on tapping into such a large market?

Walls- Coca Cola Music Commercial

This commercial answered my question. Teens. That is the market. 13-19 year olds are already most familiar with the brand, but “every six years there’s a new population of teens in the world.” (Zmuda, 2011) Therefore, there is a constant awareness to target teens. One brilliant way to do this is through pop culture. Jessica Lan commented on the effectiveness of Coke advertisements in her blog. She manages to explain the brilliance of the brand’s advertising- how it manages to captivate children and teenagers. I agree with this and it seems inevitable that this new product will explode.

The Coca Cola Music launch involved Maroon 5 ( a popular Australian band) creating a song within 24 hours, with “crowd sourced help”  (O’ Reilly, 2011) via twitter. Fans were able to watch the live stream and actively participate in helping the band create a song. This brilliant campaign has “opened [a new door to] happiness”  in that fans are experiencing a more personal interaction with their favourite artists. In my opinion, Itunes has a fierce competitor, because  “Whatever [coke is] selling, customers seem to keep on buying” (Jessica Lan). What is better than listening to your favourite artist whilst sipping on an ice-cold coke? Perhaps the fact that it was sponsored by Coke!