The Coca-Cola Company Case Study

...

According to The Public Relations Society of America, “Public relations is a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics.” (The Public Relations Society of America, 2009). The public relation can help bringing organizations and individuals together with their key stakeholders (publics) which including employees, shareholders, suppliers, financial groups, media, community, local authorities & governments and customers.

“Share A Coke, Share A Song” carried out some road shows and media visit, earn a lot of media coverage and sharing post in social media to promote the lyric coke in public. The objectives are aims to support the implement of lyric coke, draw the public awareness and stimulate the interest to purchase it. It’s a great way of incentivizing mass public to buy Coca-Cola while reinforcing the brand’s association with music and social occasions.

Table 2-2: The Public Relations used in “Share A Coke, Share A Song”

Public Relations

How to convey messages of “Share A Coke, Share A Song”

Live Band Road Show

About the Live Band Road Show:

Coca-Cola and it’s official campaign music partner MOOV invited a Hong Kong music band Suppermoment to hold the live music shows in the pedestrian zone of Causeway Bay on night time of 19-20 August 2015. Suppermoment singed few songs which lyrics were printed on Coca-Cola and attracted many pedestrians to hear and sing together (see Figure 2-2).

How to convey message:

Hong Kong is the center of Cantonese pop music, every moment of Hong Kongese has a song, and they love to sing songs to express their personal feeling. Especially, karaoke is a popular culture. Everybody enjoy singing in karaoke. Live music show like an outdoor karaoke which can let people to enjoy and sing together. It can draw people closer, reach the heart of consumers by music. Have fun singing and share a coke with friends. Many people took photos to post and share this event in social media with hashtag #ShareACokeHK and #ShareASong (see Figure 2-3).

Media Visit

About the Media Visit:

Invite some singers to visit to some media groups directly, to promote the lyric coke campaign, show it to them and sing with those lyric songs.

How to convey message:

This is the directly way to entertain the media and build up the relations, reach and lobby the media coverage. At the same time, the media will feel the respect from Coca-Cola and help to post the news in return, at least in their official account on social media platforms. The media official page always has many followers, the singers will share their daily activity with fans, and thus many people can see the news on these social media platforms, “like” the posts and share to friends. To spread out the campaign on internet and arouse awareness of the lyric coke (see Figure 2-4).

Social Media Platform

About the Social Media:

Coca-Cola encouraged consumers to spread the word about the campaign on social media with the hashtag #ShareACokeHK and #ShareASong.

How to convey message:

Coca Cola was not just telling people to use hashtag to promote the product, but it give consumers a compelling reason to talk about the lyric coke with their online communities. When people were successful in finding their favorite lyric on a bottle, they were to be encouraged to share it on social media with hashtag #ShareACokeHK and #ShareASong (see Figure 2-5). This sharing behavior performed as an elemental means of spreading brand awareness throughout social media platforms. Friends love to see each other finding and sharing their meaningful lyric, enjoying a Coke product, and they would be tended to interact with the brand. A number of celebrities sent their love through their lyric Coke on social media platforms and told to their fans on how to spread the messages without verbal communication directly among their own circle with #ShareACokeHK and #ShareASong (see Figure 2-6).

Figure 2-2 Live Band Show of Suppermoment in Causeway Bay

Figure 2-3 Sharing of show in social media

Figure 2-4 Media Visits

Figure 2-5 People sharing their meaningful lyric to friends

Figure 2-6 Sharing post by singer Alfred Hui

-

Push

-

Definition of Push

A push promotional strategy involves taking the product to the customer directly, which means to ensure the customer will aware of your product or service at the point of purchase. This may involve setting up distribution channels and persuading middle man and retailers to buy and stock your products (Gibson, 2015).

-

The Communication tools of Pull strategy used in “Share A Coke, Share A Song” campaign

Sales Promotion

Sales promotions are different marketing activities that the brand attempted to boost sales of the product or service (Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd., 2015).

The objective of sales promotion is obviously to help the growth of sales and strengthen the brand loyalty.

Table 2-3: The Sales promotion used in “Share A Coke, Share A Song”

Sales Promotion

Techniques to convey messages of “Share A Coke, Share A Song”

Free Trial

About the Free Trial:

Cola-Cola has partnered with HK’s first digital music subscription service provider, MOOV to allow consumers to enjoy the songs which were divided into four categories of “love”, “friendship”, “family” and “inspiration”. Customers just needed to scan the QR code or visit the iCoke website,