Brand Personality And Model 35i6t

SUBMITTED TO MR. ADNAN HUSSAIN (BRANDS MANAGEMENT)

Brands Management Report Pt. 3 Brand Personality : Coca - Cola Submitted by: Aimen Imran, Sehar Salman Adil, Sindhya Kirshan, Sumayyah Khan and Syed Labib Iqbal

Part three of the on-going report/presentation on Coca-Cola. Contains information pertaining to brand personality and other related aspects.

About the Brand Personality One of the most valuable brands in the world, Coca-Cola stands for more than just a carbonated drink. Competing in a market where significant differentiation of product (taste is, after all, a subjective phenomenon) wasn’t available for cola manufacturers, Coca-Cola and Pepsi along with other players like Dr. Pepper decided to create an emotional value of the brand rather than simply focus on the functional benefits of it. Interestingly, both Coca-Cola and Pepsi started off as health tonics (Palamino, 2010); in later years, they adopted an approach to marketing which would allow them to not have overlapping value propositions. Coca-Cola positioned itself as a feel-good beverage with a focus on joy and happiness for all ages and generations while Pepsi tried to market itself as the ‘hip and cool drink’ for youngsters.

Why? Why then did Coca-Cola embrace this personality and position itself in this manner? It makes sense when we understand that Coca-Cola, founded in 1892, was the pioneer in the cola industry and has been one of the very few brands in the world that have turned into a global power-house while still remaining icons of a certain culture i.e. Coca-Cola and Levi Strauss turned into iconic symbols for the ‘American dream’; they permeated every facet of the American culture and garnered a demand in the global marketplace (Goethe Institut, -) Therefore, with this rich heritage as a valuable asset for the company, it made sense for Coca-Cola to position itself as the authentic and reliable brand for all ages. The values that were picked out by the company’s strategy team were that of joy and happiness; two values that are consistent the world over.

What and How? How then was Coca-Cola able to embrace the personality attributes that allow us to associate the words authentic and reliable amongst many others with it? What are the separate aspects of the brand personality scale and how well does Coca-Cola rank on each of them? Brand Personality Scale Aspects

Score

Sincerity

5-Classic, Ageless, Happy, Friendly, Original, All-American, Family Oriented

Excitement

4.5-Innovative (Vending machine, Bow ad), Imaginative, Adventurous and Caring

Competence

5-Trustworthy, Leader, Confident,

Sophistication

4 – For Everyone, Not Pretentious

Ruggedness

3 - No Nonsense, Not Athletic

Brand as a Person Coke

Pepsi

Age

21-25

18-20

Gender

Male

Male

Income

Millionaire

Relatively less money than Coke

Children

1-2

Unmarried – 0

Educatio n

Graduated

High School, Bachelors

Occupati on

Professor- serving the society through education, is happy, has time for his family

Musician, Philanthropy

Hobby

Music , Spending time with family, picnics

Sports, Music

Brand as a Destination/Animal/Car Coca-Cola Destination

Venice or Paris – History, Heritage

Pepsi Las Vegas/California – Fun, Energetic, Sporty, Young

Animal

Elephant – Happy, Reliable, Stable

Dolphin – Fun-loving, ‘Cool’

Car

Mercedes – Reliable, Lamborghini – Sporty, Comfortable, Safe, For Young, Impulsive, All Ages Slightly Reckless

Brand Personality Drivers Coca-Cola was able to create this ‘personality’ for itself through a variety of tools that are necessary for any brand. Product-Related Drivers The Product Category: The creator of the Cola industry, Coca-Cola enjoys a special and prominent place in the industry and will forever be ed as the pioneer brand when it comes to Colas. The Packaging: Coca-Cola’s unique contour bottle is associated with the brand and is one of the most impressive assets that the company has. The bottle is shaped in such a way that even if it is broken into many different pieces, it will always be recognizable as the ‘Coke bottle’ (Lindstrom, 2008). Apart from that, the typeface used in the logo and the trademarked red colour used as the corporate colours of the company are all major parts that contribute towards the brand personality. Other Drivers The Stories/Heritage: Coca-Cola reinforced its history through its stories; an American dream of rags-to-riches where an inventor was able to create one of the largest brands in the world. Known as one of the symbols and cornerstones of American consumerism. The Organization: The culture of the parent company Coca-Cola and its actions have heavily impacted the perception of the brand by the everyday consumer. With uniquely adventurous marketing campaigns, the everyday consumer identifies the brand as a playful yet authentic brand that cares about the world and its consumers.

Below-The-Line Tools: Perhaps the most impactful tool in the Coca-Cola arsenal has been the daring use of BTL campaigns that have reinforced the brand essence of joy and happiness. For instance: 

Interactive Vending Machines between Pakistan and India (Daily Mail, 24 ) : With relationships between the two countries being tumultuous at best, Coca-Cola installed two interactive vending machines in shopping malls in Lahore, Pakistan and New Delhi, India. With video-facilities, Coca-Cola asked the people of the countries to settle their differences and ‘make friends across the border’ before sharing a Coca-Cola. The campaign resonates strongly with the ‘spread happiness’ essence of the Coca-Cola



brand. Coca-Cola’s Happiness Machines (Moth, 2013) : Classic Coke vending machines that hand out treats to visitors. There have been several variations on the theme in this campaign; while some vending machines dish out freebies to all visitors, others are activated by certain actions such as ‘hugging the machine’



(Singapore) or ‘dancing’ (Belgium). Share a Coke Campaign (Moth, 2013): One of the most successful of all Coke campaigns, the Share-a-Coke campaign actually resulted in a 7% increase in sales for the company. While in some countries it gave people the chance to order customized Coca Cola bottles, in other countries the labelling was changed to include the most common names of the country. The brand asked consumers to simply ‘share a Coke’ with those they cared about.

Functional vs. Relationship Model vs. Self Expression Model It can be argued that while the main crux of the Coke value proposition is in its emotional benefits and its relationship with its customers, recent health

awareness campaigns have also had it to focus on the functional benefits as well. While the overall essence of the Coca-Cola brand is an emotional relationship with its consumers with the feel-good factor and the entire old fashioned, genuine family-oriented aspects that customers relate it to, it has also had to come up with ways in which to defend the product from pressure groups. For instance, the Diet Coke (the fourth largest brand of the Coca-Cola Company following Coke, Sprite and Fanta) was launched with some functional benefits such as less sugar and calories etc. According to a press clipping on company’s website (Coca Cola Company, 2007): Diet Coke Plus’ will have all the great taste and refreshment of ‘diet Coke’, but with the added benefit of vitamins for consumers’ vitality and wellbeing and antioxidants to help consumers keep up with today’s hectic lifestyle ...

Coca-Cola’s move to switch to Aspartame as an alternative to sugar for lowcalorie and sugar-free beverages has been questioned by critics. The Coke campaign had its roots in functional benefits as can be seen expressed in this print ad (AdWeek, 2013):

This

print

titled products

ad was ‘quality you

can

feel good about’ which shows the overlap in the value proposition between the functional and emotional benefits that are employed by the brand. The self-expression model could be seen in use in the ‘share-a-coke’ campaign when customers could choose to share pictures of bottles with their

names

on

it

across

different

social-media

platforms

with

the

#shareacoke hashtag trending worldwide on Twitter. Customers got to gain awareness, likes and shares on various platforms and therefore were able to achieve ‘self-expressive’ benefits. While all models can be applied to certain extent to the brand, it is perhaps the relationship model that is the most relevant to the Coca-Cola example.

BRAND PERSONALITY Self-Expression Model: Feel Good Share Happiness Spread Love

Relationship Model: Family-Oriented Old Fashioned Authentic Genuine Accesible Caring Loyalty

Functional Benefit Representation Model: Pioneer in the Cola industry Global Brand

A Mistake Now ubiquitously known as one of the largest failures in marketing witnessed in recent times, Coca-Cola’s ‘New Coke’ campaign can be said to be a lesson in the importance of brand personality. While most critics argue that this marketing mistake was easily preventable, others argue that it was a marketing ploy to drive home the importance of ‘Classic Coke’. In the 1980s, two decades after Pepsi had repositioned itself as a ‘youth brand’, Coca-Cola kept on losing market share. The reason was two-fold; Pepsi’s aggressive campaign that involved g up celebrities and taking on the world by storm in their ‘Pepsi Challenge’. The second reason was the introduction of products like Diet Coke that had reduced the size of the sugared-soft drink category. In 1983, Diet Coke was third in position behind Coke and Pepsi (Haig, 2003). With people favouring the taste of Pepsi in blind-taste tests, the company decided to alter the formula of Coke. Blind taste tests confirmed that the new and altered formula was preferred over that of Pepsi and Classic Coke, the Coca-Cola Company launched ‘New Coke’. Despite the success of the taste

tests, it quickly became apparent that sales were declining and people were, not only indifferent but aggressively against the brand. Why was this so? It can perhaps best be understood in the words of the CCO of the company, David Keough who itted:

While Coca-Cola had attributed all its failure to its product, it had failed to realize the importance of Coca-Cola the brand. As has been mentioned before, Coca-Cola was the pioneer in the cola industry and as such had always maintained its stance as the original and authentic cola. The word ‘new’ was simply not one that was used by consumers when referring to Coca-Cola. Referred to by William Allen White (Pulitzer Prize winning editor) as ‘the sublimated essence of all America stands for – a decent thing, honestly made, universally distributed and conscientiously improved with the years’, the New Coke was also a cognitively dissonant message for the consumers according to Al Ries who said that it ‘if Coca-Cola stood for the ‘real thing’, then there could be no ‘New Coke’ for that is like saying there is a ‘New God’’. Classic Coke was re-launched amidst much publicity and Coke, once again, returned to its position as the market leader. The company realized that the brand was more than just the product. The lessons that were taken from New Coke are summarized in as Brand Failures (Haig, 2003):    

Concentrate on brand’s perception Don’t clone your rivals Feel the love Don’t be scared to take a U-Turn



Do the right-market research

References AdWeek. (2013, August 14). Coca-Cola Ad Defends Aspartame Beverage giant continues push back against health concerns . Retrieved November 12, 2013, from AdWeek: http://www.adweek.com/news/advertisingbranding/coca-cola-ad-defends-aspartame-151845 Coca Cola Company. (2007, July 30). Diet Coke drinkers to get more from their favorite no-sugar soft drink. Retrieved November 12, 2013, from Coca Cola: http://www.coca-cola.co.uk/presscentre/2007/july/diet_coke_drinkers_get_more.html Daily Mail. (24 , May 2013). Daily Mail. Retrieved November 11, 2013, from Mail Online : http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2330315/Coca-Colaunites-enemies-India-Pakistan-interactive-vending-machines-encourages-countries-make-friend.html Goethe Institut. (-, - -). Levi Strauss. Retrieved November 11, 2013, from Goethe Institut: http://www.goethe.de/ins/us/lp/kul/mag/deu/saf/his/en1603674.htm Haig, M. (2003). Brand Failures. London: Kogan-Page. Lindstrom, M. (2008). Buy-ology. Crown Publishing. Moth, D. (2013, August 5). 10 Inspiring Digital Media Campaigns from CocaCola. Retrieved November 12, 2013, from Eco Consultancy: http://econsultancy.com/pk/blog/63175-10-inspiring-digital-marketingcampaigns-from-coca-cola Palamino, J. ( 2010, August 25). Value Prop. Retrieved November 12, 2013, from Value Prop: http://www.valueprop.com/blog/2010/08/avoid-theoverlapping-value-proposition/