This is a response to Rohit Bhargava’s blog post on Coke.
Rohit’s blog talked about a campaign Coke started in the beginning of the year revolving around the obesity and how they were against it. He goes on to explain 4 main point on why he thinks they are doing it:
Photo by: Coke
1. Public pressure
2. Negative reputation of high fructose corn syrup
3. Commitments to health matter more at the start of the year
4. Focusing on health can make competitors look unfeeling or out of touch.
1. Rhoit talks about the fact that public pressure is one the main reasons Coke started this campaign is note worthy. I thought that as obesity rates continue to rise it was natural for Coke to try and proactively tackel the issue. While this may be one of the main reasons Coke started this campaign it is not one of the more exciting things to talk about.
2. In the blog he goes on to talk about high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) and how there has been more awareness of its dangerous in the general public. Considering that Coke does use HFCS a lot in their main products it is not a surprise that they would try and mitigate this thereat. What was surprising is that HFCS is going through such a harsh criticism that corn refiners attempted to rebrand HFCS however, it did in the end fail to do so.
3/4. While it is interesting that Coke decided to launch it in the beginning of the year to possibly play up the resolution card what is far more interesting is the effect the campaign has on Coke’s competitors. Coke has been able to possibly move ownership on to Pepsi by being the first to tackle the issue. Especially considering that Pepsi was the sponsor for the Superbowl and that may have just reminded people about the dangerous of pop just by seeing the brand.
There were a lot of possible reasons on why Coke started this campaign. I think that the biggest reason is an attempt to make its competitors look worse rather than a genuine care for people. By being the first to talk about the elephant in the room it could move the ownership of the problem towards Pepsi by attaching a “what are they doing about” stigma to Pepsi.
Here is a link to one of their advertisements.