Coca-Cola To Use Media To Connect With ‘New-Age’ Consumers

When we talk about pop, one of the first brands that comes to mind is conglomerate, Coca-Cola. The beverage maker has always been at the fore-front of the advertising industry (watch Mad Men, and you’ll see), however it looks as though they may be changing up their marketing-mix.

Coca-Cola is looking to establish its presence across various media platforms in this age of short attention spans, and even shorter bylines in order to increase regionalisation of beverage consumption. 

“As much as we love the 30-second spot which continues to play, we are also focusing on multiple other touch points to stay relevant with consumer’s attention spans which have reduced dramatically,” Vijay Parasuraman, vice-president, marketing, at Coca-Cola India, said, speaking to ET. “The good thing is ad spends are growing across platforms including television, print and digital/social, and our spends have also increased over last year.” 

While the beverage giant will be reallocating their budget across platforms, Parasuraman says it won’t be at the cost of one medium. “The challenge all consumer facing companies are facing is how to integrate an idea across various platforms. The ‘one big shot on a television commercial with one celebrity’ days are over,” he said. 

Recently, Coca-Cola picked up a co-presenting on air sponsorship during the IPL with Star India for close to 135 crores. They have also signed a five-year global sponsorship deal with the International Cricket Council (ICC) as exclusive non-alcoholic beverage partner for all ICC events starting 2019 for an estimated Rs 300 crore.

Fly to London for the ICC World Cup Final with Coca-Cola. #CWC19 #CricketWithCoke pic.twitter.com/sTLMKe1qNc

— Coca-Cola India (@CocaCola_Ind) May 11, 2019

Coca-Cola is also looking for ways to master the challenge of hyperlocalisation. “Earlier, there would be one communication, which we could dub and put it across everywhere,” Parasuraman said. “Now you have to find stories that work for each location and national medium.”

To solve this problem, Coca-Cola has teamed up local linguists to co-write scripts with national teams. “We are pushing our agency partners to give us ideas that work everywhere,” Parasuraman said.