Question:
Discuss about Coca Cola zero advertisements.
Answer:
The Coca Cola Company’s launch of the Zero Coke to the market was successful and penetrated all the markets that they targeted making it an instant sale. Their target market was the young males especially in colleges and other areas due to the fact that their previous release, Diet Coke that most people associated with females (Verwijmeren et al p 206). This has attracted drinkers from both genders due to its taste and the caption that it has low sugar and is calorie free. Most young drinkers associate it with ‘coolness’ and the modern young people want something that they can identify with. The young generation purchase things that they feel reflect their touch with technology.
One of their captions that make it go off the shelves is the fact that it promises its users that it is sugar free. The marketing team has also managed to target different markets by using different captions on the sodas (Pendergrast p45). For every market, they use different wording in the can as they realized that every market has its needs. This is through the different cans used in the France market, the US market and others.
Another of their creative ways that the Zero advert uses is through using the young people in colleges as it is their main target market (Fosfuri & Giarratana, p 181). They do this sponsoring college events like sports that they believe will attract many colleges and offer gifts to the winning teams as an encouragement. Such sponsoring of college events not only acts as a form of marketing, but also a form of reassuring the target market that they care about their welfare. They also use the different holidays to create different themes that help them market their products for the period for instance during the Christmas holidays and during winter where they design sweater designs. All these actions work in their favor as the marketing team targets different markets depending on the seasonal changes.
Advertisements on the print, social media platforms and on television are all packaged to bring a message to the target audience on the goodness of the product. Such captions appear to capture the attention of the young people especially those in social media. The marketing team has realized the power of social media and has embarked on the campaign that makes them available online all throughout (Ellman & Germano, p 680). Such makes them answer customer questions and respond to any kind of complaint that the market may have on their product. Images on billboards are creatively put that capture the emotion that the models on the advert have. This makes it a direct method of advertising where happy emotions emerge after enjoying a Zero Coke drink.
In conclusion, the success of the Zero drink from the Coca Cola Company is attributed to the creative marketing the marketing department of the organization uses. They have moved from the conventional way to the modern methods of advertisements taking advantage of the technological changes and using them to reach a wide market. Images of people taking the Zero Coke are of happy people.
References
Ellman, M. and Germano, F., 2009. What do the papers sell? a model of advertising and media bias*. The Economic Journal, 119(537), pp.680-704.
Fosfuri, A. and Giarratana, M.S., 2009. Masters of war: Rivals’ product innovation and new advertising in mature product markets. Management Science, 55(2), pp.181-191.
Pendergrast, M., 2013. For God, country, and Coca-Cola: The definitive history of the great American soft drink and the company that makes it. Basic Books, pp. 45-78.
Verwijmeren, T., Karremans, J.C., Stroebe, W. and Wigboldus, D.H., 2011. The workings and limits of subliminal advertising: The role of habits. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 21(2), pp.206-213.
