People in deprived communities don’t have sustainable access to safe drinking water, electricity, basic sanitation and etc.; however, “they do have Coca- Cola” – Melinda Gates, a well-known philanthropist shares lessons learnt from Coca-Cola’s in doing Non-Profit business in the TedTalk.
I am very impressed by how Coca Cola engaging people. Simply but importantly, Coca Cola makes people “want” coke by associating the product with a kind of life that people “want” to live.
LOCALIZATION— a vital secret behind Coca-Cola’s success Ms. Gates mentioned. For example, Coca Cola localized campaign slogan “Open happiness” into various meanings in different places. Through research, Coca Cola understands the macro environmental factors such as culture – “shared meanings, beliefs, morals, values and customs of a group of people”; for instance, Latin Americans associate happiness with family life, while South Africans associate with community respect”.
Wavin’ Flag by K’NAAN
The company not only segments the market on geo-demographic base, but also on psychological base. Acknowledging people’s self-value or goal of attainning happiness, Coca-Cola communicates with the potential consumers who experience extreme poverty through the promotion anthem “Wavin Flag“, depicting a image (self-concept) they ideally have — “singing song underneath the sun and rejoicing in the beautiful game”. It shows that people who drink coke are happy and carefree. Coca-Cola defines a lifestyle that people want to achieve happiness. Through the song and advertisement clip, the company delivers an appeal of unity and celebration to locals while defining happiness as “Freedom, just like a wavin’ flag”; truly, the company does bring hope and aspiration to people who suffer from poverty.
Coca-Cola “open happiness”
Surely, Coca-Cola’s approach will influence consumers’ decision making process; being aspired by coke’s belief, locals now have motives to seek out the products that fulfill their lifetime goal; in other word, they “want” coke in their lives to embrace happiness.
No doubt, Coca-Cola’s success drives us to think about how NGO can do for the needy people, and what an appropriate way is to reach the goal in health development. (To be continued) .
Source:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_yfapBARs1pA/TB9Va7P3aHI/AAAAAAAAA3I/HBmwcVGqH1s/s320/Wavin’_Flag.jpg
http://theinspirationroom.com/daily/print/2009/1/coca_cola_bubbles.jpg
http://www.worldchanging.com/2698611499_042ee16c13.jpg