Coca Cola Marketing (Social Media) [Coke VS Starbucks]

on
The Flow:
 Coca-Cola Brief
 Coca-Cola Experiential (Sensory) Marketing
 Coca-Cola on Facebook (Case)
 Questions to think upon!
 SEO
 Social Media Analytics

Company Brief
 Invented in 1886 by a John Steith Pemberton, an American pharmacist. He sold
his patented discovery to Asa Griggs Candler, who established Coca-Cola Company.
 Company’s Portfolio: More than 3000 Products which are sold under 500 Brand
Names in 206 Countries. Revenues in 2010 were $30.9 Billion.
 Joe Tripodi, the CMO, saw a new trend in the marketing communication during
2010. This led to a new position in the company - Senior VP for IMC, and they
realized that they had to focus on this new trend of social media. Wendy Clark was
appointed for that position.
 The challenge was to scale globally while being locally relevant. “Creating effective
marketing at a local level in the absence of global scale can lead to huge
inefficiencies.”
 Michael Donnelly, Group Director, Worldwide Interactive Marketing, supported
Wendy Clark in delivery of marketing messages via social channels to a global
audience.

Company Brief
Michael Donnelly led a team focused on the social media aspects of business
of what the industry called Paid, Owned, Earned, and Shared Media.
• Online Display Advertising, Paid Search and Site
Sponsorship.Paid
• Packaging, Delivery Trucks, Websites owned and
controlled by the firm.Owned
• Word-of-Mouth, Peer-to-Peer Message boards, Viral
Advertising passed along between consumers.Earned
• Media shared with its retailer customers. e.g. Store
Advertising and Point of Sale material.Shared

Diet Coke & Mentos
 June 2006 – Stephen Voltz and Fritz Grobe posted a video on
Eepybird.com and share the video on a video sharing site called Revver.
 Dubbed, “Experiment 137” or “ The Bellagio Fountains” – the video
showed geysers made by dropping Mentos into bottles of Diet Coke.
 The video went viral, being viewed 2 Million Times in just 9 Days - $10
Million worth of publicity according to the estimates by Mentos.
 While Mentos was quick to respond and offered to sponsor more such
tactics, Coke was initially cautious.
 Later on, in July, Coke launched a user-generated content strategy, inviting
consumers to upload videos of their own making geysers in response to
the challenges designed by Coke.

Diet Coke & Mentos
 August 2006 – Michael Donnelly joined TCCC and immediately formed a
partnership with Voltz and Grobe.
 Offered Google Video, second instalment of the geyser series – The Extreme
Diet Coke and Mentos Experiments: The Domino Effect
 Started with 250 geysers, they went on to make such videos through 2010,
setting World Records for activating 500 geysers in Cincinnati, 800
geysers in Holland, 1300 geysers in Belgium, 2200 geysers in Germany.
 As a result of this exposure, Mentos reported a sales increase of 15%
(highest in its history) and Diet Coke saw a 5%-10% increase in sales of
its 2-liter bottle and 27% increase in traffic to coke.com

Blossoming of Social Media
 Diet Coke & Mentos video saw its success before social media started trending.
 Twitter launched in July 2006. Facebook had only 10 million active users
worldwide, MySpace had 100 million members but lacked the ability to broadcast
to a member’s entire network of friends. MySpace introduced instant messaging
capability in 2006 but it connected individuals, not networks.
 2007 onwards, social media began to blossom (Exhibit 1). People could begin to
post photos/videos, share and comment on the same. ‘The content-sharing
mechanism on Facebook allowed people to see when their friends in their social
network mentioned brands.’
 November 2007 – Zuckerberg introduced ‘brand pages’, where companies could
create and manage their own page on Facebook.
“The next 100 years are going to be different for advertisers, starting from today.
For the past 100 years, media has been pushed to people, but now marketers are
going to be a part of the conversation.”
 The launch of ‘brand pages’ failed to attract required attention.

 In August 2008, Zuckerberg tried again, announcing ‘engagement ads’,
units that invited users to become a “fan” of the brand, comment on an ad
or give a gift.
 A Facebook executive explained that Facebook was solving the demand-
creation side of the online advertising equation as opposed to the
demand-fulfilment side. Tools like ‘search ads, text links and
performance display ads’ helped in solving this issue.
 But at the end of 2008, few brands had a presence on Facebook, and those
that did attracted in total barely 1% of Facebook members.
 Companies began using social media as a platform to advertise and connect
with customers. By 2009, companies began to experiment and started to
offer special discounts and vouchers if customers “liked” their page on
Facebook.

 A study published at the end of 2010, found that out of a random sample of
Facebook members who had ‘liked’ a brand…
8%
18%
32%
46%
51%
55%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%
Consumer Packaged Goods
Car Brand
Sports Team
Fashion or Luxury Brand
Cause
Media or Entertainment Business
% of Members who 'liked'

 Among the reasons customers gave for becoming a brand fan…
Overall, the effect following a brand on Facebook was that 36% of fans
wanted to buy the brand’s products more.
26%
33%
33%
33%
39%
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45%
Be Involved in Development of New Offers & Products
Take Part in Games and Contests
Get Exclusive Information
Receive Invitations to events related to Brand
Receive Advance Information on Future Products & Offers
Reasons to become a fan of a Brand

First Venture into Social Media - MyStarbucksIdea.com
• In March 2008, Starbucks created their site “MyStarbucksIdea.com” to
allows users to submit suggestions to be voted on by Starbucks
consumers, and the most popular suggestions are highlighted and
reviewed. Starbucks then took it a step further and added an “Ideas in
Action” blog that gives updates to users on the status of ideas suggested.
• A total of 75,000 ideas were contributed, from which the company chose
to implement 100, including complimentary Wi-Fi, the ability to buy a
friend a beverage remotely, and splash sticks to block the hole in coffee
cup lids.
• Next ‘social media push’ came, in January 2009, in the form of a Facebook
page, complemented by Twitter, Flickr, and YouTube. It used coupons,
special offers, and discount promoted in stores, to encourage customers
to “like” it on Facebook.
Starbucks and Social Media

Promotion of it’s New line of Products – Via & Pastries
• To promote its instant coffee product – Via, Starbucks leveraged Facebook in
following ways:
 Webisodes – through the story of a person on a road trip.
 Photos – of and by Starbucks customers at their favourite locations.
 Videos – stories of coffee harvesting techniques.
• To promote its new healthier line of pastries, Starbucks ran a promotion called
'Free Pastry Day', where a customer who buys a handcrafted coffee gets a free
pastry given they present a coupon posted online. As a result, Starbucks added
200,000 new fans on its Facebook page.
• In October 2010, Starbucks launched Starbucks Digital Network. Along with free
complimentary Wi-Fi, it partnered with Yahoo! to provide free premium news,
entertainment and lifestyle content, including content local to the store. It also
partnered other social media apps like FourSquare and LinkedIn.
Starbucks and Social Media

Staying True to the Community
• It’s been seen that for fans/customers of a brand, it’s largely about the
deals (coupons & discounts) and not as much as shared passion.
• While Starbucks’ brand presence and growth can mostly be attributed to
its promotional activities, Coca-Cola’s brand presence and growth is more
of shared passion/love for the brand.
• In order to sustain the non-promotional relationship with its fans, Coke
needed to ensure that it was having a real conversation with its millions of
fans (in 206 countries), rather than just broadcasting messages from on
high.
• How can they leverage the power and reach of social media, and interact-
engage with its fans on a “global scale with local relevance”?

Coke’s Brand Page
 August 2008 – Dusty Sorg and Michael Jedrzejewski launched the unofficial Coca Cola
Facebook page.
 Decided to create a brand page on Facebook on a ‘whim’ and chose Coke because they
had a bottle in their hand at that time. The page included discussion board, polls, fan
photo page, video sharing and a Wall on which comments, opinions etc.
 The page had 1.9 million ‘fans’ within 4 months. At TCCC, Michael Donnelly tracked
150 odd Coke fan pages, and noticed the rate of growth of Sorg and Jedrzejewski’s
page.
 Sorg and Jedrzejewski had very active and expressive ‘social graphs’, their network of
FB friends, who became the core of their fan base, which is why rapid growth of their
page was seen (Exhibit 3).
 Donnelly noted that their page was technically more sophisticated and professional
compared to other fan pages due to which the popularity.
 And as Facebook grew globally, Coke, being more developed globally, grew with it.

Coke’s Brand Page
 Facebook called TCCC to inform them that the fan page was in violation of a
policy governing pages – unaffiliated individuals couldn’t host a brand page
 TCCC had four options
 Ask Facebook to take down the page.
 Transfer control to copyright owner.
 Approach page owners and negotiate transfer.
 Consent to have unaffiliated third party host and administer a page in it’s name and
it could start it’s own “official” page.
 After much deliberation and thinking, they decided that the best approach
would be to get to know Sorg and Jedrzejewski and meet with the
interactive marketing team.
 Guiding principle – “Fans First” strategy; “less about us, more about them”

A must-think for Donnelly was ‘how would the brand ensure that
it was having a real conversation with its millions of fans, as
opposed to broadcasting messages from on high?
“Our team has focussed on building the pipes to scale. We want
to communicate with individuals and local communities around
the world, as opposed to communicating on a global basis. We
want to talk with people, not at them as most traditional
advertising does.”
Coke’s Brand Page

Coke’s Brand Page
Currently,
96.4+ Million Fans
#TasteTheFeeling is
their latest campaign.

Why do people become friends on Facebook?

Why do people share on Facebook?

What should Donnelly do in 2011 to leverage on the momentum
which got Coca-Cola 20 Million Fans?
Use Sensory (Experiential) Marketing
& Target Customers at Hyperlocal Level

What should Donnelly do in 2011 to leverage on the momentum
which got Coca-Cola 20 Million Fans?

What Coca-Cola should be trying to accomplish with Facebook
platform under it?
Reach
Act
Convert
Engage

What Coca-Cola should be trying to accomplish with Facebook platform under it?
How?
User Generated Content ( Leading to Earned Media)
Interactive Campaigns ( Engage in a Real Conversation)
Hyperlocal Marketing (Owned Media on FB)

What can be learned from Coca-Cola’s success till date?
Leverage Social Media Channels to:
Increase Earned Media,
Promote ‘Owned Media’ for free,
Engage with Customers & have Real Conversations
Target Customers at their Local Levels
Be Responsive

Coca-Cola Social Media Strategy
Coca Cola is not a chain of stores providing service like
Starbucks. It cannot be completely community driven.
Coca Cola is limited by its interactions with customers
through the product alone, while Starbucks interacts on
many levels. This limits the engagement TCCC can offer.
The tribe on Facebook are enthusiastic advocates of the
brand and it should be engaged on Facebook.

Coca-Cola Social Media Strategy
More Campaign Based &
Owned Media Based

Starbucks Social Media Strategy
(Highly Engaging & Personal)

(User Generated Content)

Strategy:
Starbucks created their site “My Starbucks Idea.” to allows users to submit
suggestions to be voted on by Starbucks consumers, and the most popular
suggestions are highlighted and reviewed. Starbucks then took it a step
further and added an “Ideas in Action” blog that gives updates to users on
the status of changes suggested.
Result:
By empowering their exceptionally web savvy
consumer, Starbucks strengthens their campaign to
add a personal touch to coffee.

Strategy:
 Starbucks in the US launched a “Free Pastry Day” campaign, an event page on Facebook and there were
more than 600,000 confirmed ‘attendees’ to the event!
 The news were spread all over Facebook through sharing and automatically triggered co-promotion for
the brand / event.
 They started the promotion with their fans, At that time, Starbucks had about 3.6 million fans and the
news were automatically shared across the network, because the fans were excited.
Result:
Starbucks gave their fans a reason to follow them. The
reward? 2,00,000 new fans on its Facebook page.
2,00,000 new prospective loyal customers.

Coca Cola & Starbucks FB Strategy
 Owned by Starbucks
 Is community driven.
 Location based.
 Rewards customer tribes.
 Engages customers at a higher level.
 Encourages customers to create content
for marketing and operations.
 Gratifies customers by implementing
their ideas globally.
 Owned by fans.
 Is promotion driven with engagement
built in. Engages consumers to share
pictures, videos and opinion.
 Cannot be location based promotion, and
cannot offer discounts to consumers.
 Consumer tribe trust this page because of
its creators and their non association
with Coca Cola.
 Promotes the brand of Coca Cola through
customer experiences.

Concern for Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola: 96+ Million Fans Starbucks: 36+ Million Fans

Concern for Coca-Cola: Need to Learn & Refine

Search Engine Optimization
Focused on growing visibility in Organic Search Engine Results
More frequently a site appears on a search page, the more
visitors it will receive from the search engine’s users
Considers how search engines work, what people search for,
actual search terms or keywords typed into the search engine
and search engines preferred by users
Backlinks

SEO – Answering the BIG 4 Questions

Primary Objective for Being on Social Media
Social Media Trends – EY Study

Challenges Faced on Social Media (1 being the most important)

Challenges Faced during 2013 in Marketing the Brand on Social Media

 Suzzane Vranica and Chad Turhane,”Mixing Diet Coke and Mentos Makes a Gusher of
Publicity.” Wall Street Journal, June 12,2006, via Factiva, accessed January 26, 2011.
 Eepybird.com, FAQ http://www.eepybird.com/frequently-asked-questions/ , accessed
January 26,2011
 Rob Hof, “Facebook Declares New Era for Advertising.” Bloomberg Businessweek,
November06, 2007.
http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/techbeat/archives/2007/11/facebook_d
eclares_new_era_for_advertising.html , accessed February 12, 2011
 DDB Worldwide and OpenionWay Research, “Facebook and Brand.” October 11, 2010
 Mark Walsh, “Starbucks Top 10 Million Facebook Fans,” Marketing Daily, July 14, 2010,
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/132008/starbucks-tops-10-million-
facebook-fans.html , accessed January 31, 2011
References

Coca Cola Marketing (Social Media) [Coke VS Starbucks]

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Coca Cola Marketing (Social Media) [Coke VS Starbucks]