Did you know that the happy and friendly image of Santa Claus wearing iconic red and white colors was actually a genius marketing by a famous brand?
You might have already guessed the brand from the color combination itself. That’s right! Even though the image of ‘Santa’ evolved as a result of the merging of several historical myths, it’s believed that Coca-Cola’s advertising of the 1930s featuring Haddon Sundblom’s iconic illustration of Santa Claus holding a bottle of Coke, solidified the image of Santa as we know him today.
The Coca-Cola Company is an American multinational corporation that is one of the top players in the global beverage industry. From its humble beginnings as a medicinal drink developed by a pharmacist, it has evolved throughout history into an iconic and refreshing drink associated with feelings of happiness and togetherness.
In this article, we’ll look at how the company employed effective branding strategies and legendary marketing tactics to become one of the most memorable brands with immense brand loyalty associated with it. Let’s dive straight away into Coca-Cola’s Branding Case Study.
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The Brief History of Coca-Cola
Before we dive into its branding, let’s just quickly go through some of the defining moments in The Coca-Cola Company’s history:
1886
Everything related to the brand began in 1886 when a pharmacist Dr. John Pemberton invented a drink that was advertised as a medicinal beverage that relieves headaches.
1892
Later in 1892, the Coca-Cola formula was sold to an American businessman named Asa Candler who incorporated it as a legit company and called it The Coca-Cola Company.
1899
In 1899, the bottling rights for Coca-Cola were sold to Benjamin F. Thomas and Joseph B. Whitehead, who established the first bottling plants.
1916
In 1916, the iconic Coca-Cola bottle, designed by the Root Glass Company, was introduced. And, this went on to become an integral part of the company’s visual identity.
1919
In 1919, the company was sold to Ernest Woodruff's Trust Company of Georgia.
1955
In 1955, Coca-Cola was introduced to the public as a carbonated soft drink in cans for the first time.
Through many ups and downs throughout history, The Coca-Cola Company grew from being a nationwide sensation to one of the top players at a global level.
And, for the company to become a global brand, a well-developed brand strategy, a consistent and attractive brand identity, and brilliant marketing practices played a very crucial role.
Coca-Cola's Brand Strategy
Let’s start with understanding the Brand Essence of The Coca-Cola Company. Within that, we look at the brand's core purpose first, which is essentially, why the brand does what it does beyond just making profits.
According to the company, its Brand purpose is: ‘To Refresh the World and Make a Difference’. With a strong presence in more than 200 countries, The Coca-Cola Company’s core existence is to refresh people not just in a physical sense but also in spirit, and not just to refresh an individual person but also communities.
As a beverage brand, their Brand Vision is to craft the brands and choice of drinks that people love, to refresh them in body and in spirit. And all of this is to be done in ways that create a more sustainable business and a better future that makes a difference in people’s lives, communities, and our planet. And, to achieve this vision, the brand focuses on the 6 Ps, which are:
Productivity: Being a highly effective, agile organization.
Profit: Maximizing returns to shareowners.
Planet: Being a responsible company with a sustainable focus.
Partners: Nurturing a network of customers and suppliers.
Portfolio: Delivering a wide range of different drinks and products.
People: Being a great place to work where employees are inspired and engaged.
Now, the brand values, or the set of beliefs that help guide the beverage brand as a whole, as well as the people who are a part of the brand, are:
Leadership: The courage to shape a better future
Collaboration: Leverage collective genius
Integrity: Be real
Accountability: If it is to be, it's up to me
Passion: Committed in heart and mind
Diversity: As inclusive as our brands
Quality: What we do, we do well
Brand Architecture of Coca-Cola
Moving on to the Brand Architecture of The Coca-Cola Company, the Coca-Cola Company has approximately 200 master brands in its portfolio, spread across various segments within the beverage industry, targeting distinctly different customer profiles. Let’s have a look at some of the popular ones:
1. Core Brand
The most popular one is Coca-Cola, or Coke, which is one of the World’s most popular carbonated soft drinks. Within the Coke brand, there have been many variants apart from the original Coke that we all love like Diet Coke and Coke Zero Sugar. Over the years, they had also introduced flavored versions like Coca-Cola Cherry, Coca-Cola Vanilla, and Coca-Cola Lemon.
2. Soft Drinks
Other popular carbonated beverages include soft drinks like Fanta and Sprite, along with sparkling water brands like Schweppes and Fresca.
3. Healthy Drinks
Some of the healthier beverage brands included in the company’s portfolio are dairy-based beverages from Fairlife, and fruit juice brands like Minute Maid, Simply beverages, and Innocent drinks.
4. Other Beverages
They also have a sports drink brand called Powerade, a coffee brand called Costa Coffee, and a tea brand called Fuzetea.
5. Hydration Brands
The company also owns water and hydration brands like Dasani and Kinley, and enhanced-water brands like Glaceau Smartwater and Glaceau Vitaminwater.
As a result of many such subsidiary brands in its portfolio and its ‘World’s largest beverage brand’ status, The Coca-Cola Company faces competition from a variety of companies and conglomerates in different sectors of the beverage industry like PepsiCo (specifically, its soft drinks line-up), Nestle (specifically, its coffee beverages like Nescafe), Unilever (specifically, its tea beverages like Lipton), Red Bull, and Dr. Pepper, to name a few.
Just like any other successful brand, The Coca-Cola Company also has a defined and consistent brand personality that helps customers resonate with the brand and stay loyal to it. The brand is all about Optimism and Happiness.
The company’s personality profile can be effectively defined by one of the Brand Archetypes called, ‘The Innocent’ archetype. The innocent is characterized by a positive personality with an optimistic outlook towards life. This is evident from the company’s messaging and marketing communications which often have a simple, honest, and humble tone of voice.
As the brand offers a wide range of products, its target audience would include individuals of all age groups, with a particular focus on young adults and millennials, without any specific gender bias. Coca-Cola targets individuals who embrace an active and social lifestyle, value experiences, and are often influenced by popular culture, and social media trends.
Coca-Cola's Brand Identity
Now, this is the segment where we get into the technicalities of the design side of things related to The Coca-Cola Company.
The drink’s inventor John Pemberton had a bookkeeper called Frank Mason Robinson, who is credited as the creator of the brand name and the logo of Coca-Cola. Robinson had come up with the name by combining the two main ingredients that were then used to create the drink, which were the Coca leaves and the Kola nuts. Moreover, the descriptive name is an example of alliteration which makes it even more catchy and memorable.
Related article: What Are The 9 Types of Logo Designs?
Robinson had created Coca-Cola’s cursive-style wordmark logo using a writing style called Spencerian Script which was the most common style of handwriting in the US during the late 19th Century. The logo proves to be so strong, appropriate, and timeless that until today there have been very minor tweaks and improvements to the logo since its creation.
There was a crazy conspiracy theory in the mid-1900s that the Coca-Cola logo when reflected in the mirror resembled the Arabic script that could be read as “No Mohammed, No Mecca”. This led to the company’s brief scrutiny in Egypt in 1951 but, it eventually got dissolved as just a theory or a mere coincidence.
Nevertheless, the fairly minimalistic logo is perfectly legible and effective in the sense that it focuses more on the personality and vibe of the brand as compared to deliberating trying to communicate what the product is.
Coca-Cola’s brand colors are white, symbolizing optimism and joy, along with a particular shade of red that gives a sense of love, passion, and energy.
While the brand does not shy away from experimenting with various visual elements in its communication designs, the primary graphic elements that form an integral part of Coca-Cola’s visual identity are the ‘wavy dynamic ribbon’ derived from the brand’s script type logo and the ‘contour bottle’ design that’s based on the iconic Coca-Cola bottle which is one of the most recognized packaging in the world!
Coca-Cola's Marketing
Being such a huge brand with a widespread product portfolio, we could only imagine how challenging it would be for The Coca-Cola Company to convey its purpose and brand vision to consumers worldwide.
This is where the marketing genius of the brand comes in. Coca-Cola as a company has always focused on establishing an emotional connection with people and building trust with them, through advertisements.
The brand has a significant presence in every single medium of communication possible, from print media and traditional media advertising to digital and social media advertising.
While there have been numerous marketing campaigns run by the brand throughout its existence, let’s have a look at some of the popular ones that none of us could ignore:
1. "Open Happiness" (2009):
This campaign aimed at spreading the optimistic brand messaging by showcasing uplifting and relatable situations in people's lives by featuring diverse individuals experiencing moments of happiness while enjoying the drink.
2. "Share a Coke" (2014):
This campaign had customized Coca-Cola bottles with popular names of people and relations, inspiring the customers to buy them and share them with their loved ones as well as strangers. It led to the generation of loads of user-generated content on social media and promoted the idea of social sharing.
3. "Choose Happiness" (2015):
This campaign was created as a way of communicating the freedom of choice that people have in choosing their drink as well as choosing happiness over anything else.
4. "Taste the Feeling" (2016):
This campaign focused on the positive emotional impact that comes as part of consuming the drink.
5. "The Wonder of Us" (2018):
This campaign focused on celebrating diversity and inclusivity by showcasing a diverse range of individuals and their unique experiences, bringing it all down to the fact that the drink is for every individual person on the planet.
Here’s an interesting fact for you…
Coca-Cola had once launched a new product that initially became a massive marketing disaster for the company but, to their surprise, it eventually turned into a complete advantage for the brand.
Between the 1970s and 1980s, Coca-Cola’s biggest competitor brand Pepsi initiated a blind taste test between Coke and Pepsi out in the public. The results showed that a significant majority of people prefer Pepsi over Coke.
After staying a bit defensive for a while in handling these public tests, Coca-Cola came up with a new formula for Coke in 1985 and called it the “New Coke”. Even though this new Coke took the top spot in almost every blind taste test thereafter, to their shock, people felt so nostalgic and emotionally connected with the original Coke that it led to a huge backlash.
The issue became so big that hundreds of thousands of people sent letters and made calls to the Coca-Cola company asking them to bring back the original. The company gave in and brought back the original as “Coca-Cola Classic”. Surprisingly, this move actually increased the love for the brand since it looked like the company had listened to its customers and given them the utmost priority over anything else.
Brand Loyalty is a strange thing, sometimes!
Conclusion
I think we can all agree on the fact that it’s not a joke for a brand to be extremely relevant in any part of the world consistently for this long and be on the top of people’s minds every single day.
While Coca-Cola has a very solid brand strategy foundation and a well-crafted brand identity, its true strength lies in its marketing genius. It’s one of the top global players for a reason.
The brand does not shy away from using newer technologies and extremely creative ideas in putting its message out. Whatever the brand does, it ends up serving as a great inspiration to brand designers, strategists, marketers, and advertisers alike.
To top it all, Coca-Cola operates something called the ‘World of Coca-Cola’ in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. This is essentially a soft drink-themed museum that talks about the brand’s history, and the technology it uses, and hosts flavor samplings as well.
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