Coke launched its new “Taste The Feeling” campaign last week, which is its first global campaign across all Coke brands including Coca-Cola, Coca-Cola Light/Diet Coca-Cola, Coca-Cola Zero and Coca-Cola Life under one global creative campaign, “Taste the Feeling.”
In decades past, a new Coke brand campaign would be praised by bottlers, saluted with a thumbs up by retailers and produce millions of consumer smiles. The only naysayers might be Coke competitors, notably Pepsi. This new round, however, is different. Growing global opinion suggests that drinking sodas including Coke promote health issues including obesity, diabetes and heart disease.
In fact, new Dietary Guidelines for Americans released this month by the Agriculture and Health and Human Services Departments nearly banish the added sugar consumed by Americans via sodas and other sweetened drinks to less than 10% of daily calories. That’s just a single serving of Coke.
As Geoff Cook a founding partner of Base Design admits in ADWEEK, the “Coca-Cola brand is revered, and the product is increasingly reviled."
Even Coke's message gives hints of a gathering storm. Rather than offering a higher order benefit--past examples include happiness, joy and world peace--“Taste the Feeling” returns to basic needs and Coke’s thirst quenching benefits.
To highlight the international flavor of the new 'One Brand' global marketing strategy, Chief Marketing Officer Marcos de Quinto, unveiled the new multi-million dollar campaign effort not from Coke’s Atlanta, Georgia headquarters but from Paris, France.
An infographic posted in The Huffington Post in July 2015 and updated January 8 helps us out. Titled “What Happens One Hour After Drinking A Can of Coke” we understand that (and we quote) within the first ten minutes, ten teaspoons of sugar (100% of your recommended daily intake) hit your system. Within 20 minutes your blood sugar spikes, causing an insulin burst. Your liver responds to this by turning any sugar it can get its hands on into fat, which there is plenty of. Forty minutes in, your caffeine absorption is complete. Your pupils dilate, your blood pressure rises, as a response your livers dumps more sugar into your bloodstream. The adenosine receptors in your brain are now blocked preventing drowsiness. (End quote.)
Niraj Naik, the person who supplied the infographic, also goes under the name of The Renegade Pharmacist. (The fact that Coca-Cola was created by a pharmacist in Atlanta, Georgia named Pemberton is ironic.) Naik is one of many people who are sending negative messages about Coke and other sugar-based drinks to consumers around the globe. As Naik explains on his site, he researched what actually causes some people to become obese. Abstinence diets alone do not work. “A trigger factor for many widespread diseases of the West such as obesity, heart disease and diabetes could be closely linked to the consumption of one particular substance found in many processed foods and drinks,” says Naik. “Fructose in the form of high fructose corn syrup.”
Coke uses high fructose corn syrup. So do many other products. But those other products are not committed to spending millions of dollars in advertising. And that’s the rub.
Several articles point to Coke’s big fat brand problem. One third of American adults remain clinically obese and bubbly soft drinks no longer represent good times. In Philadelphia, a mayor tried recently to tax soft drinks, claiming their effects on personal health and correlating high public medical costs. The mayor failed, but the real message is clear and consumers are voicing the message themselves--the new Coke campaign arrives amid nine years of declining Coke sales.
“Brand strategies or tactics can deflect from larger issues,” says branding firm Base Design’s founding partner Geoff Cook. “But fundamentally, ... there's been a shift toward more healthful living. And until they actively change the product [to be healthier] and change the public's perception of the product, the new branding initiatives will ring hollow.”
Coke, which has promoted bubbly joy, happiness, Coke and a smile, lately has been a subject of cynicism and sometimes scorn.
One example. Last year, Coke launched a hashtag program which turned hateful tweets into cheery images. Gawker pranked the Coke effort by hacking into hashtag programming and turning the tweets into phrases from Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf instead.
People point to Coca-Cola and other soda pops as one of the causes of obesity and poor health. Rival Pepsi has scurried off and bought a series of profitable natural food companies to balance off their bottom line. Coke also has health-oriented companies including Honest Tea, Odwalla and VitaminWater. Yet, a quarter of all carbonated beverages consumed globally today are made by Coke.
Communities (even brand communities) are judged not only by how they act in good times, but also by how they behave when their beliefs and values are put to the test, when they have to give up something of themselves for others. God said to Abraham give me a Son.
Many 21st-century companies are discovering that brand communities are belief systems. People are attracted to you not only because of your products alone, but also by how they feel about you as a company. What do you really mean to them? Do your values align?
Chipotle will be shutting down their stores for a day in February to make certain their values and product safety align with their community’s sense of who they should be. Recently, the founder of TOMS shoe company, a millennial favorite, declared that they were reimagining the company mission: the firm has become so focused on day-to-day process, they have drifted away from their original mission “to use business to improve lives.”
Coke’s new “Taste the Feeling” campaign enjoys over ten new highly produced television commercials and meme-laden images demonstrating the sonic joy of “Taste the Feeling.” But will the campaign resolve the shadowy image growing behind Coke’s wavy silhouette? I can’t stop the feeling that it doesn’t even try.
Our answer will be found in the coming sales results. Will the taste feel bitter or sweet?
