There are interesting features of Coca Cola as a carbonated drink that is enjoyed in different parts of the world. Also known as coke, the drink is product of the Coca-Cola Company that has been in existence 1886. The corporate ownership has an interesting historical context that stretches back to the U.S. where the product is produced. During the American Civil War, John Pemberton, a Colonel decided to seek an alternative for morphine. Therefore through his Eagle Drug and Chemical House, he designed a prototype he called Coca-Cola recipe. Noting success, he registered the drink earlier as French Wine Coca as nerve tonic (Armstrong, 2010). Unfortunately, a prohibition legislation of 1886 resulted to conversion of the tonic into a nonalcoholic drink recording impressive sales in Atlanta, Georgia. Consequently, the typical target audience shifted from the soldiers and vagabonds to ordinary civilians. Interestingly, in recent decades the product has been promoted to attract the youth in a market share full of other beverage products. In the same context, appealing to the younger generation is a marketing strategy with critical repercussions in terms of increasing profits across global outlets.
Conversely, the emerging demographic of youth is what has necessitated the constant change of the ad campaign notably “Taste the Feeling”. The campaign evokes powerful emotions of drinking a beverage that awakens the entire bodily senses. On the flipside, Coca-Cola has impressive facts and figures that inspire its corporate culture of opening new markets across the world. For instance, its Total Cash Assets are now at $16.97 trillion while the Enterprise Value of Coca-Cola stands at $189.2 trillion. Additionally, the average stock value for the past decade is $26.85 meaning the product has been enjoying relative profits compared to its rivals such as Pepsi. Advertising pitch for the product has undergone numerous changes to reflect the needs and desires of its target audience (Dana, 2014). These changes include the urge to feel cool among young people and drinking Coca-Cola as a symbol of youthfulness.
If I were to propose a new advertising pitch or strategy for the Coca-Cola Company to popularize its product, it would be “Cool is Good with Coke.” Invoking the idea of cool is for the targeted audience comprising young people to buy the beverage in large quantity while associating it with belonging and identity. Similarly, the new slogan has the intention of arousing feelings that would trigger new marketing strategies of attracting other demographics of women and old people who prefer other drinks. It means I would want the pitch to convince customers that drinking Coca Cola is the only remedy to feeling cook in order to blend with others. Contextually, appealing to the clientele base with promises of a better beverage is equally part of the slogan while advocating for increased consumption. In other words, this has the potential expanding the market share through new brand portfolio that will scare other competitors. The idea of health as a central factor in the advertising pitch is usually linked with ensuring that the product consumed is free of side effects on the user (Kazmi & Batra, 2009). Therefore, I will fashion the message in a way that is reflective of global trends that continue to reject fizzy products that cause lifestyle diseases such as gout and diabetes. Overall, refining the product’s branding is the basis of persuasion in advertising.
There are numerous persuasive strategies that I used in order to reach my target audience and hence market. First, involves appealing to both logic and reason with the intention of displaying supportive evidence and statistics for the product. Straight facts such as the percentage of health benefits recorded by dieticians demonstrate that drinking coke can help boost a productive life. Second, comprise the use of ethos in invoking the credibility of the brand especially when considering other production models that define the brand portfolio such as formula for flavorings. Additionally, credibility is interpreted from the context of logo design and contour bottle design to prove that coolness is an act of identifying with the company’s overall values and motto. Advertising pitch is also related to the production process that qualifies the persuasive strategy of ethos (Armstrong, 2010). However, the use of pathos has been prevalent when the targeted audience is accessed through TV commercials. Marketing ploy to exploit traditional media and currently social media is because a large section of young people are into media. Alternatively, the media aligns with Coca-Cola’s values of using youthful identity and belonging to pitch their product against the closest rivals as PepsiCo and Kola Real among others. Popular culture as an integral feature of meeting corporate goals is closely linked to references of meeting the demands of a small population of college kids eager to consumer products that appeal to their emotions and senses.
The nature of the product often implies that advertising pitches ensure that the consumers not only buy the product, but also enjoy it to meet the persuasive goals of ethos as a strategy. Notably, the former slogan of “Taste the Feeling” while it appeals to the pathos as an integral feature of persuasion, absence of logos is very loud. This because the earlier designers of the advertising pitch did not anticipate a certain demographic question the sense of tasting some feeling literally. Confining the slogan as an American identity has equally faced stiff criticism from the targeted audience meaning they don’t identify with the suggested feeling in the commercial. Consequently, that’s a blow to the brand’s total credibility meaning markets outside America end up misinterpreting the message (Kazmi & Batra, 2009). The overall geographic spread is definitely hampered by others factors of branding that Coca-Cola significantly witnessed particularly in the Middle East. Interestingly, the trend was replicated in North Korea and Cuba because of presumptions of the company’s goals and objectives that failed to meet the global standards. The mentioned countries experience low consumer consumption because the advertising did not meet the threshold of not only credibility but logic.
The issue of formula of flavoring became another bone of contention for Coca-Cola Company specifically when its earliest advertising pitches started to spread across the world. This has been consistently complicated by a both corporate ownership and sponsorship. Contrastingly, the franchise production model adopted by the beverage company for years has signaled a departure from incorporating newer advertising techniques that will reflect the current times. The model’s emphasis is usually on syrup concentrate that is distributed to diverse retail stores in geographical areas, but still fails to meet international marketing standards (Dana, 2014). This is notable amongst food service distributors, who prefer the inclusion of sweeteners and filtered as opposed to raw ingredients such as flavor colorings.
Brand portfolio necessitated by popular demand has spawned diverse Coca Cola products namely Coca-Cola Raspberry, Coca-Cola Black Cherry Vanilla, Coca-Cola Citra and Coca-Cola Orange that are all different versions of the same beverage (Armstrong, 2010). Unfortunately, the slogan pitch often omits the varieties and the cultural dispositions that affect the reception. The inclusion of the Santa Claus as part of the Coke brand has also elicited different reactions. Therefore, unlike the old slogans that are always attuned to the celebrity culture of Claus, my new advertising pitch is persuading consumers beyond emotions. Celebrity culture supported by the company is an act of triggering youthful emotions for the purposes of gaining massive profits. Additionally, the organizational structure that is in charge of marketing pitches implies that different slogans are used for only certain occasions. For instance, while my strategy is attempting to persuade the broader geographical market across the globe, the previous one, “Taste the Feeling” is always restricted in accordance with the franchise model used by Coca-Cola. Restructuring of advertising campaigns has meant that persuading different entities to accept the beverage is an uphill task that cannot be accommodated everywhere. Product comparison interestingly has enjoyed perspective consumers prefer to choose what is better than another one. Analyses of techniques that define advertising denote that sloganeering in the corporate culture is not always persuasive enough. Instead, pitches such as “Share a Coke” are determined to break new markets that are nonexistent while the company hopes to become a global brand.
Pushing clients to make unhealthy choices through emotional persuasions has been another critical concern that is different from my new advertising pitch. Flouting government regulations and parental control, the beverage manufacturers have engaged in marketing campaign that is largely traditional in terms of its techniques. In other words, the long term consequences is that consumers are exposed to unhealthy diets that do not reflect well for most geographical regions (Kazmi & Batra, 2009). Explaining consumer perception is another fundamental area that is complicated by the numerous persuasive styles often used by the Coca-Cola Company for years. In brief, while there is memorability in the adverts and emotional appeal, often they lack brand credibility.
Therefore, outline health consciousness as the ultimate goal of drafting and designing slogans should continue to define the objectives of the beverage organization (Armstrong, 2010). This has the potential to influence even the perceptions of consumers who prefer the drinks manufactured by Coca Cola’s rivals notably Pepsi and Kola Wine. Alternatively, customization products have signaled that the advertising techniques of the company do not meet the international standards of commercial interests. A decline of sales and affected advertising campaigns has been the negative effect with loss in up to $2 billion per year according to an independent annual report.
Coca Cola Company thus has a lot to expand its branding and franchise model to ensure that future advertising pitches and slogans that are used generate profits and capture new markets. This means that persuasive styles and emotional marketing techniques employed resonate perfectly with customers across the globe (Dana, 2014). Similarly, adopting a flexible strategy that promotes health consciousness has the advantage of increasing not only credibility, but also reason among the various departments within the company. In other words, defining the objectives and goals of a brand is the ultimate responsibility of ensuring new measures are palatable to youth and other targeted audiences.
- Armstrong, J. (2010). Persuasive Advertising: Evidence-based Principles. New York, NY: Springer.
- Dana, D. (2014). Cases on the Societal Effects of Persuasive Games. Belmont, MA: Routledge.
- Kazmi, S. & Batra, S. (2009). Advertising and Sales Promotion. Mason, OH: SAGE.