Marketing in Business School: Coke Pulls White Holiday Cans
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Night Owl is a former resident of San Francisco with work experience in biotechnology research & development. She's moving into the commercial side of business by pursuing an MBA at Kellogg. |
Good post from my friend and Kellogg ‘13 classmate. The Coke white can/polar bear campaign was a hot topic in my marketing class yesterday. We had an interesting debate on whether or not social media inflated what may have been an issue with a small group of consumers and the consequences of toying with a brand’s key message (i.e. that particular “coke” red).
Personally, I LOVED the cans and I’m sad to see them go. My coke consumption is about 50% diet and 50% regular, and I NEVER had an issue confusing the two products. Then again, I can read the big “Diet” on the packaging and yes, the regular coke tasted the same in both colored cans!
Yesterday, Coca-Cola announced it will pull its white cans off the shelf. I thought it was a nice gesture to change its signature red cans to commemorate the polar bear philanthropic initiative. However, I am NOT a Diet Coke drinker and would never normally confuse a white Coke Classic can with a silver Diet Coke can. I was also familiar with the campaign before seeing the cans, so I knew what to look out for. But die-hard Diet Coke drinkers were confused and disgruntled over the similarities.
WSJ article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204012004577070521211375302.html?mod=dist_smartbrief
What do you think? Too similar? Did you get confused?
1 comment
rjank on December 4th, 2011 at 8:21 pm
I didn't know about the new white cans and was confused in the store for all of two seconds before I read the packaging and realized it was regular Coke repackaged for the holidays. If anyone is so confused that they buy and/or drink a can thinking it was diet when it was actually the re-packaged regular then they just aren't paying attention at all.