Marketing experts the world over have been racking their brains over Coca Cola’s most recent rebranding which seems to be against the best interests of its customers. Coca Cola has undoubtedly presented a myriad of highly effective advertising campaigns that have in the past, engaged with customers and helped them to form long lasting emotional connections. The marketing industry now fears that the changes that the brand is making are going to negatively impact it’s consumers and of course, in turn, sales and customer loyalty.
If you’re a business owner you will know just how important it is to present your target audience with a brand that they can become familiar with and recognise. It is then important to engage with them, give them a real life experience (experiential marketing) where they can connect with the brand and then spend time and effort building on the brand. Coca Cola’s latest blooper seems to that they’re doing exactly the opposite of that.
What exactly has Coca Cola done? Essentially they’re putting their busy-minded customers at risk. When you’re familiar with a product’s branding, you can absentmindedly go about your shopping, quickly selecting items purely on recognition of colours and branding. For years, those counting calories, avoiding caffeine, dieting or even dealing with diabetes have been able to quickly find the Coca Cole product for them, but that’s now a thing of the past – albeit the very recent past.
According to the new Coke branding scheme which was unveiled in Mexico City on the 19th of April, Coca Cola will revert back to their predominantly red branding. Yes there will be distinguishing colours to tell the products apart, but just a sliver that’s barely noticeable. When asked the reasoning behind the changes, Coca Cola responded that it will make their products “easier to distinguish”. We think not!
It goes without saying that only time will tell. The company is rolling out its changes in Mexico City and hope to have a global turnaround in their branding by 2017. It worries some marketing teams that it has taken Cokes in-house marketing team to tweak the brand to this new look over the past 18 months and could very well reverse all that the brand’s marketing has achieved over the past 130 years!
Coca Cola’s advertising blooper is a fine example of how big brands too can fall from grace. The marketing industry is certainly watching on to see what happens. How can you avoid making similar marketing errors? The trick is to place strategic marketing plans in place and to systematically measure the results of each and every campaign. Marketing avenues and campaigns that work need to scrutinised and worked on only to be improved. Major changes to effective advertising campaigns can be dangerous territory and a professional marketing team should always be consulted.
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