Taste the Possibilities

I do believe Coca-Cola made the right choice in differing the Coke Zero campaigns the way they did in  North America from the rest of the world. As this "diet" soda was meant to widen the target market (to young-adult men) on diet soda, it was clever to eliminate "diet" from the campaign in North America. Young men in North America tend to see Diet drinks as being meant for older women. This strategy seemed to create great success in the areas they were targeting, and more, in the US. Without removing "diet" from the campaign, I don't think it would have had the same success. We, in the US, would have written it off as just another Diet Coke--why do we need that? By simply not calling it a diet soda, Coke lowered the age of the general target audience, including men, and even roping in young women.

The fake blog in Australia doesn't seem at all unethical to me, from a business stand point. Coca-Cola was looking for a new, different approach to getting their product out there--as they are known to do. Lying to consumers? Please. Everyone does that. Is something as trivial as a blog more unethical than the ads in the US, wherein they used lawyers who didn't know they were being recorded to fane a lawsuit against themselves? It was simply a campaigning strategy, and it worked. It simply appealed to peoples' interests, and connected them to Coke Zero. Sure it was done in a very personal way, but isn't that just all the more clever. Would you say Sony's fake website for the movie 2012--where it had a sign-up so you could be safe at the end of the world--is unethical? In a paranoid age, such as this, that fake website appealed to people's emotions, just as Coke Zero's fake blog did. It worked, and nobody is hurt.

Another product like Coke Zero: Pepsi Max. Maybe a little before Coke Zero, Pepsi launched a zero calorie soda targeted at young men. In their campaigns, the beverage is more explicitly geared toward men, not always successful at including women in their market. They also eliminate the usage of "diet" from their ads and brand name, which is clever and successful. But, as with many Pepsi products, Pepsi Max is not nearly as successful as Coke Zero. For one thing, I see hardly any evidence of an international campaign on Pepsi's part, and certainly not one as powerful as any of the Coke or Coke Zero campaigns. Pepsi Max does not touch on the consumers' emotions like Coke Zero, or even Classic Coke has done. If anything, Pepsi Max enjoyed a short lived spark of success, and has faded away to the point where I only thought of it from an internet search, because I couldn't think of an example other than Dr. Pepper 10--that will also eventually fade into the same abyss. As Coke Zero is not so explicit with showing who their new target market is, they do not limit themselves in terms of new campaign possibilities. Pepsi Max does, almost immediately move away from the Man theme, but with campaigns that hold little theme. The closest they come is with "Don't worry, there's no sugar!" Basically this, and other Pepsi Max ads imply that, with this no sugar soda, you can do things you normally couldn't.