As one of the most recognizable soft drink brands in the world, Coca-Cola’s global marketing strategy plays a key role in its operation. Over a century since Coca-Cola has launched, it stays authentically to deliver one central idea —— “Enjoy” and “Happiness” to its consumers. Drinking coke has been promoted to make connections with a pleasant experience or a choice of style.
With the increasing awareness of a healthier lifestyle, we begin to clear about that excessive intake of sugar and calories can put our health at a higher risk of getting obesity and diabetes. Drinking sweetened beverage ties significantly with it. Then Coca-Cola company seized the intention and came up with “Coca-Cola Life”, a green packaging coke. “Coca-Cola Life” is positioned to meet changing lifestyle trends, providing people with a great tasting, lower-calorie cola sweetened from natural sources for more health conscious consumers. In order to do more to tackle the global obesity epidemic, the green coke contains a third less sugar and calories sweetened with cane sugar and stevia leaf extract, instead of regular sweeteners. In addition, the green packaging provides consumers a sense of nature and sustainability, which also caters to the trend of environmental protection through recycling and recovery.
After reading Drew Evan’s blog “Coca Cola — A Life Cycle”, it brought me to think whether the green labeled product can truly improve the health of consumers or just to boost Coca-Cola’s sales. In my perspective, it might be a combination of both. On the one hand, the green coke marketed with “healthy” may mislead people to consume more coke since it is healthier. As long as people become less guilty about drinking less sugared coke, the result may end oppo
sitely with what Coca-Cola company promoted to tackle with, while they still can generate a lot more profits. Indeed, th
e benefit of intaking the green coke has been exaggerated as one of the marketing strategies. On the other hand, the launch of “Coca-Cola Life” shows the efforts Coca-Cola company is taking to realize the transition of shifting consumers’ demand for regular coke to a lower or zero calorie cola substitution. Indeed, the green coke is not healthy enough. And Coca-Cola sees the challenge for coke to compete with any other healthy drink in the future, like bottled water. But they are moving in the right direction, coming up with the new ideas to offer consumers a healthy and tasty coke.
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External Blog Links:
Drew Evan “Coca Cola — A Life Cycle” October 16, 2016
https://blogs.ubc.ca/drewevans/2016/10/16/coca-cola-a-life-cycle/
Works Cited:
Davies, Madlen.“So is this new ‘Green’ Coke all it’s cracked to be? Critics warn low-sugar Coca-Cola Life is simply a marketing gimmick.” Web. 31 Oct. 2014.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2815775/Green-Coke-calorie-free-leaf-sweetener-South-America-sugar-regular-critics-warn-s-marketing-gimmick.html
Roderick, Leonie. “Coke , Life one year on: sales success or marketing gimmick?” Web. 13 Oct. 2015.
https://www.marketingweek.com/2015/10/13/coke-life-one-year-on-sales-success-or-marketing-gimmick/
Warkentin, Shahrzad. “What Can We Learn from Coca-Cola’s Global Marketing Success?” Web. 18 Dec. 2014.
https://www.smartling.com/blog/what-can-we-learn-from-coca-colas-global-marketing-success/
