Comparing Coca-Cola's Traditional and Social Media Marketing

COMPARISON BETWEEN TRADITIONAL
MARKETING AND SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING:
A CASE STUDY OF THE COCA-COLA COMPANY
SAHEEM SALEEM
B12090003

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BACHELOR IN BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION (HONS)
SEPTEMBER 2012 INTAKE
SCHOOL OF BUSINESS
MALAYSIA UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
YEAR 2016

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CERTIFICATION BY THE SUPERVISOR
I hereby certify that I have read this project paper and in my opinion this project paper
has met the quality standard and all the requirements for the award of the degree of
Bachelor in Business Administration (Hons) of Malaysia University of Science and
Technology.
Signature: …………………………………….
Name of Supervisor: Dr Yeah Kim Leng
Date: 31 January 2016

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COMPARISON BETWEEN TRADITIONAL
MARKETING AND SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING:
A CASE STUDY OF THE COCA-COLA COMPANY
SAHEEM SALEEM
BACHELOR OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION [HONS]
GRADUATE PROJECT PAPER
A project paper submitted to the School of Business, Malaysia University of Science
and Technology, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor in
Business Administration (Hons).

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DECLARATION
I declare that this project paper consists of my original work, with the exception of
quotations and citations which are duly acknowledged, and that it has not been
previously accepted for a degree and is not being concurrently considered for any
other degree at Malaysia University of Science and Technology or any institution.
_______________________________
(Signature)
STUDENT’S NAME: SAHEEM SALEEM
Date:

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
CERTIFICATION BY THE SUPERVISOR......................................................................iii
DECLARATION .................................................................................................................v
TABLE OF CONTENTS....................................................................................................vi
LIST OF FIGURES ...........................................................................................................vii
CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................... 1
1.1 – Introduction to Study ............................................................................................. 1
1.2 – Research Question.................................................................................................. 3
1.3 - Research Objectives................................................................................................ 3
1.4 - Significance of Study.............................................................................................. 3
1.5 - Theoretical Framework........................................................................................... 5
1.6 – Constraints of Study............................................................................................... 5
CHAPTER 2. BACKGROUND OF STUDY..................................................................... 7
2.1 - Marketing Communications ................................................................................... 7
2.1.1 - Communication ............................................................................................... 8
2.1.2 - Frequency ........................................................................................................ 8
2.1.3 – Effectiveness ................................................................................................... 9
2.2 - Traditional Marketing........................................................................................... 11
2.2.1 - User Trends.................................................................................................... 11
2.2.2 - Company Trends............................................................................................ 12
2.3 - Social Media Marketing ....................................................................................... 14
2.3.1 - User Trends.................................................................................................... 14
2.3.2 - Company Trends............................................................................................ 15
CHAPTER 3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY .............................................................. 17
CHAPTER 4. RESULTS AND ANALYSIS.................................................................... 18
4.1 - Case Company: The Coca-Cola Company........................................................... 18

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4.1.1 - Company Profile............................................................................................ 18
4.1.2 - Past Marketing............................................................................................... 19
4.1.3 - Current Social Media Marketing ................................................................... 23
4.2 – Comparison between traditional marketing and social media marketing ............ 26
4.2.1 - Comparison 1: Communication..................................................................... 26
4.2.2 - Comparison 2: Frequency.............................................................................. 32
4.2.3 - Comparison 3: Effectiveness ......................................................................... 36
4.3 – Discussion of Key Findings ................................................................................. 42
CHAPTER 5. CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH.. 47
REFERENCES ................................................................................................................. 49
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1. The theoretical framework design for this thesis. ............................................... 5
Figure 2. The Marketing Communication Framework Model............................................ 7
Figure 3. Top social media marketing’s ROI metrics year 2014. ..................................... 10
Figure 4. The proportion of decline in traditional media profits in year 2014 ................. 12
Figure 5. The forecasted compound annual rate growths of traditional media
tools in comparison to social media tools for year 2014-2020..........................13
Figure 6. The forecasted number of global social network users year 2010-2018........... 15
Figure 7. The top social platforms for brands in year 2014. ............................................. 16
Figure 8. Coca-Cola’s classic ads ..................................................................................... 20
Figure 9. Communication Matrix. .................................................................................... 27
Figure 10. Product life cycle of Coca-Cola year 2014...................................................... 33
Figure 11. The increasing advertising spending for SuperBowl tournaments
year 2003-2014..................................................................................................37
Figure 12. Coca-Cola’s strategy of content creation. ....................................................... 39
Figure 13. Coca-Cola’s decline in sales year 2005-2014. ................................................ 40

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Figure 14. The brand engagement framework. ................................................................. 42

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CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 – Introduction to Study
Marketing communication in the academic and management fieldwork has been the
subject of significant transformations in the last two decades. Many scholars believe that
some of the previous marketing tools have lost ground while the 1960’s and 1970’s mass
marketing approaches have become less effective. Media proliferation, globalization and
the rise of the new age generation of which Internet being the most prominent of them –
are changing the marketing mix and market dynamics while providing consumers with
greater and better opportunities and empowerment. The social networks with increasing
popularity are Facebook, Youtube and Twitter, measured in accordance to the level of
activity of its members (Porter, 2008). Social networks have challenged traditional
marketing tools, overcoming geographical barriers that now allow interaction on a global
scale.
Such developments have given rise to debates for a new marketing orientation that has
gained a new and faster momentum. It creates the need to re-define and elaborate
marketing approaches from the ones used as traditional to the ones used now in social
media marketing presently. Organisations that are usually the main driving force behind
the countries’ economies, have not always went to a limit where they can fully exploit
their innovative and creative capacities. In that manner, social media domain creating
businesses with new opportunities to enhance their competitive position to create new
forms of values for customers that will attract new potential customers and help to build
strong relationships with them.
However, this requires further understanding of the transition process for marketing
strategists: surviving in the age of the empowered customer requires less efforts and
dependence on traditional mass-marketing tactics; and understanding the role of
technology in shaping the marketplace and more importantly engaging with social media
as a part of the marketing tool becomes a strategic imperative. The success metrics of

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these strategic imperatives are important to the organisation for achieving its goals, while
meeting the consumer needs and wants.
To explore this increasingly important theme, the researcher has chosen Coca-Cola as the
case company. Although the focus is on the parent company covering worldwide stores,
Coca-Cola is undeniably one of the most recognizable brands in the world. It has been the
best global brand not only for 2013, but also from 2001 until 2012. Coca-Cola is also a
company with a long track record of not only business but innovative marketing ideas
with all of its products, but none more so than its traditional cola product. This use of
new and innovative marketing ideas is not only a current trend but also a company idea
since its founding. Given the size of the company, its well-known products, logo, brand
and the company’s history, not only in business but in marketing it is the best company to
examine when comparing social media to traditional advertising.

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1.2 – ResearchQuestion
The primary research question that this study intends to address is:
‘’What are the differences between traditional marketing and social media marketing?’’
The study will focus on the Coca Cola Company.
1.3 - ResearchObjectives
Alongside the main research question, the researcher has identified three research
objectives that would help to explain the main research question. The threefold objectives
of the thesis are:
1: How does traditional marketing and social media marketing differ in terms of
communications?
2: How does traditional marketing and social media marketing differ in terms of
frequency?
3: What is the effectiveness of traditional marketing and social media marketing?
1.4 - Significance of Study
Social media marketing has always been well recognized as one of the most potentially
powerful marketing communication channels, therefore there is very limited
understanding of the effects and the penetration of it on the traditional marketing. Most of
the Modern age relatively limited academic studies tend to over-emphasize social media
marketing as a new tool that increases marketing communication effectiveness (Tsimonis
& Dimitriadis, 2014). Very little focus has been applied on how the elements and aspects
of marketing communications have changed after Social Media has come into the picture.
At this point, there is a limited number of of studies conducted which examine the
process of transition from traditional to social media marketing and the surplus and

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deficit involved in the transition and how successful it has been in changing firms’
marketing strategies.
Considering the gap, this thesis has one primary purpose – to support and explore
exponential opportunities for exchange in commercial marketing, not only by
emphasizing on consumer needs but also by capitalising on revolutionary ideas in the
marketing area. As Carvalho & Mazzon (2015) contended, changes in the marketing
world should occur beyond the firm and individual level, encompassing communities and
the social environment.

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1.5 - Theoretical Framework
Figure 1 shows the relationships between dependent variables and independent variable.
The dependent variables which are traditional marketing and social media marketing
contribute towards the effectiveness of these marketing tools, respectively and
independently. The two elements of marketing mix used to examine the effectiveness of
the marketing tools are communication and frequency. These elements act as the
moderators between the dependent variables and independent variable, which determines
the strength of the effectiveness. Apart from that, the effectiveness of both traditional
marketing and social media marketing are examined independently for effective
quantitative comparison.
Figure 1. The theoretical framework design for this thesis.
1.6 – Constraints of Study
The biggest limitation of data collection is the lack of direct contact with the case
company. To mitigate the challenge, company annual reports, corporate website,
corporate news, journal articles, and directly quoted company representatives from news
source amongst other secondary sources were derived online as the primary data was
unavailable. The second limitation to this thesis is geographical constraint. This thesis
Communication
Frequency
Traditional
Marketing
Social Media
Marketing
Effectiveness of
marketing tool
Marketing Mix
Elements

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only addresses some of the world’s largest social media sites in the majority of countries,
which are dominant in different parts of the world at different scales. These social media
sites may differ for companies in different industries too. As for the limitation of the case
company’s analysis, the numerous ideas of marketing content and the various forms of
advertisements are slightly opinionated because it is subject to how companies would
strategically use specific forms of advertisements and the type of information they would
in these forms to meet their specific goals. Finally due to the limited number of sources
available for making direct comparisons, many of the comparisons were made
deductively.

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CHAPTER 2. BACKGROUND OF STUDY
2.1 - Marketing Communications
Marketing communications practitioners are kept up with new ideas and technologies that
usually provide great promises but do not live up to their expectations (Miller & Lammas
2010). In a time of media fragmentation and advertisers critically questioning the cost
and effectiveness of traditional media marketing, a strong influence of social media
advertising are evident particularly among the younger demographics. Within the
marketing communications, the significant transition to social media and the medium is
due to the combination of technological drivers such as bandwidth; economic drivers
which are user access to more tools which helps to develop user generated content and
social drivers such as the generation of IT- savvy youth recently becoming consumers
with purchasing power.
Figure 2. The Marketing Communication Framework Model.
Marketing
Communication
Framework
Communication
Control
Credibility
Frequency

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The two important elements of marketing communications chosen for this thesis are –
communication and frequency. These elements are a part of the McGraw’s Marketing
Communications Framework (refer to Figure 2) combined as a set of complementary
ingredients, drawing on the potential of each other in the paradigm of marketing
communications, based on which the effectiveness of the marketing tools are measured.
The other are elements are not examined in the thesis as the researcher has narrowed
down the research scope to one qualitative element (communication) and one quantitative
element (frequency).
2.1.1 - Communication
Communications in a particular marketing tool not only aim to intensify the existing
firm-to-customers and customers-to-firm relationships, but also at the same time create
new types of variations on conventional options that strengthen communications. As
brands effectively develop and enhance relationships with customers, the interactions
fundamentally improve the ease of contact, speed, volume and reach of marketing
messages among consumers. In fact, many marketing channels that were dominated by
Generation Y are also extending to older generations. For instance, Facebook’s largest
demographic of social networkers in 2014 consisted of women aged 55 and above. Only
when the brand identifies and pursues the target audience, the communication aspect of
marketing tools expands and shortens the hurdle to reach target audiences that somewhat
essentially translates into and portraits the commercial success of organisations.
2.1.2 - Frequency
The correct marketing tools allow firms to reach millions of people in the most efficient
and effective way. Since a huge number of people are already a part of social media, the
presence of a brand’s name all over social networks can help inform people about the
product and enable them to become familiar with the firm, thus creating brand awareness
among the customers . However, this strategy requires frequency so that boost in sales
can be visible to measure. “Frequency” refers to the number of times and duration in

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which an individual is exposed to a message during a specific period. This involves a
complementary relationship with “reach”. By having people visiting a brands fan-page on
any of the social media platforms at certain frequency, it is likely to create traffic for the
web site and generate more online sales. At this point, firms can reach out to larger
audience that otherwise could not be reached through different mediums and help to
establish a steady levels of brand awareness.
2.1.3 – Effectiveness
Donna Hoffman and Marek Fodor suggested that the effectiveness of marketing
communications can be measured by the brand awareness and brand engagement they
generate, that indirectly affects the return of investment of a particular brand Petrescu &
Korgaonkar, (2011). Although brand awareness refers to the brand’s exposure, a more
active measure is brand engagement which aims to capture the intensity of interaction
between the brand and the consumers. In traditional marketing, this refers to the word-of-
mouth among consumers. In social media marketing, this includes the number of
comments, wall posts and re-tweets.
Much concern has been revolving around the fact that there is no statistically significant
relationship between marketing and short-term sales – which is true. However, it is
notable that most companies have acclaimed progressive marketing in their marketing
strategies and that the return on investment (ROI) and competitiveness profile matrix
(CPM) have to be consistently measured in terms of business performance over a longer
period of time which will be the real mark of success. Secondly, the question whether
marketing campaigns will be effective in the short and long term in unanswerable, be it
traditional marketing or social media marketing. Despite the traditional “more is better”
approach used in the traditional marketing; social media marketing approximately
measures effectiveness based on owned and earned media connections, and the social
networks being the heart of connection to this set of combination. Some of the commonly
used metrics of social media marketing’s ROI, shown in Figure 3 are qualitatively
translated as marketplace impact, brand value, brand loyalty and consumer engagement.
Such metrics not only measure whether people are engaged, but how they are engaging.

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Figure 3. Top social media marketing’s ROI metrics year 2014.
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26
38
40
53
67
76
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Other
Sales
Lead generation
Shares of social conversations
Social mentions across platforms
Traffic to website
Social presence: Number of followers and fans
Percentage of use (%)
Marketingmetrics
Top Social Media Marketing ROIMetrics

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2.2 - Traditional Marketing
Traditional methods of marketing mainly consist of advertisements conducted through
magazines, newspapers, telephone books, TV, and radio which are often charged for a fee
for the placement of advertisements. While other methods of marketing include direct
and brand marketing, one-way, push-based, and interrupt-driven techniques that are
directed from the company to the customer. Without a request from potential customers,
companies apply the strategy of ‘‘push’’ marketing activities onto the clients, and this can
be gained by interrupting their activities. Companies using traditional marketing methods
often spend millions to find out their target markets (Chang, Yu & Lu, 2015).
2.2.1 - User Trends
In past years, when almost all individuals read the local newspaper or received a new
phone book every year, these platforms were the solid media or marketing channels on
which many business owners could rely and market their product. However, this is
rapidly changing. People increasingly prefer to get their news online rather than through
the newspaper, and a large number of households no longer use telephone books, since it
is comparatively convenient to just simply obtain the numbers and other contacts and
various information online. Even well-known magazines no longer have the same
circulation numbers they once had as E-magazines have over taken them in the age of the
Age of the Internet (refer to Figure 4).

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Figure 4. The proportion of decline in traditional media profits in year 2014
2.2.2 - Company Trends
Advertising spending is increasingly flowing from traditional media tools to digital and
social media tools, as trajectories for social ad spending continue to rise for online
advertising campaigns among organisations. Although the traditional media spending
pales in comparison to social ad spending that is projected to grow at an annual rate of
25% by 2017, TV advertising still continues to dominate global advertising spend by
organisations with an expected growth of 2% annually by 2017. Nevertheless, social
media marketing is still expected to surpass traditional TV marketing by 2020 (Marvin
2015).
In terms of ad revenue growth (refer to Figure 5), social media advertising revenue shows
rapid adoption while traditional media revenue sees modest growth throughout 2020. The
growth is significantly higher than what is projected for traditional advertising spending
32
28
24
22
21
15
14
12
9
Newspapers
Consumer magazines
Radio
Trade magazines
Television
Out of home
Events/trade shows/virtual events
Video games
Direct marketing
Percentage of decline (%)
Traditionalmediatools

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because the strategic use of social networking sites have rapidly repositioned traditional
marketing in offering greater competitive advantages. However, one great advantage of
the shift is that through social networks organisations can co-create publicity among
those involved in the brand marketing, thereby allowing savings largely in the market
research of traditional marketing.
Figure 5. The forecasted compound annual rate growths of traditional media tools
in comparison to social media tools for year 2014-2020.
14.9
0.9 1
-2.5
-1.5
2.2
0.4
-4
-2
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
Social media TV Radio Newpaper Magazine Out of home Traditional
total
Percentageofgrowth(%)
Traditional media tools
ForecastofAdvertising Revenue Growth 2015-2020

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2.3 - Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing is a process that gives organisations the ability to present their
own services and products through online social channels to communicate in a connected
community and to listen and interact with that community — which is certainly
impossible to do with traditional advertising channels. Social media marketing uses social
networks such as Facebook and Twitter, social news, media sharing, microblogging and
online communities and forums in order to ensure that an organization’s visibility over
the Internet effectively showcases and creates product awareness to the new or existing
customers.
2.3.1 - User Trends
An estimate of 142.1 million American, 46.6 million Japanese, and 31 million Brazilian
consumers accessed social networks in 2014. The Internet reaches a potential audience of
over 11 million users in Australia itself of which more than 70% use social network;
Facebook has over 6 million registered users and 800,000 registered followers on Twitter
(Constantinides, 2014). Besides the rising number of global users annually (refer to
Figure 6), it is found that active users of reading blogs grew from 54%-77% between
2012 and 2014. The number of people having written a blog rose from 28% to 45% and
also notably people watching video clips online jumped up from 32% in 2006 to 83% in
2008. Most importantly, consumers gain a new user role with social media. Consumers
are becoming ‘‘content creators’’ and therefore, functional consumers instead of just
consuming, like previously done in the past.

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Figure 6. The forecasted number of global social network users year 2010-2018.
2.3.2 - Company Trends
Marketing a product or service through social media is making a significant impact on the
marketing strategies of companies as it is expanding, and taking the place of older
methods in some companies. Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn have grown to be the top
three social media sites used by brands (refer to Figure 7).
0.97
1.22
1.4
1.59
1.79
1.96
2.13
2.29
2.44
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018
Numberofusers(billions)
Year
Number of Social Network Users Worldwide 2010-2018

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Figure 7. The top social platforms for brands in year 2014.
In year 2014, 93% of marketers used social media marketing for business, and 70% of
them have used Facebook to successfully gain new customers. Meanwhile, 34% of
marketers have used the aid of Twitter to successfully generate leads, and 30% of them
have seen increased brand presence among consumers (Lightspandigital.com, 2014). 83%
of MNCs that are using social media marketing believe that it is important to their
business and more than 9 million organisations worldwide are already using social media
platforms by shifting from traditional marketing.
Considering clicks from shared sites are as much as five times more likely to be shared,
most companies are promoting their content via social networks. With the rise of better
measurement tools that not only track clicks and likes, but in actual engagement in the
form of discussion shared across multiple platforms, causing actions as a result of those
sharing social media marketing can only grow stronger in the next decades.
25
33
38
41
48
84
85
86
91
94
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Tumblr
Foursquare
Slideshare
Flickr
Forums
YouTube
Blogs
Linkedin
Twitter
Facebook
Percentage of use among brands (%)
Socialplatforms
Top Social Platforms for Brands in 2014

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CHAPTER 3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
To fulfil the researcher’s goal, the thesis uses comparative analysis approach – a
deterministic, theory-driven and non-probabilistic method. Intrinsically, the methodology
is divided into two stages: The first is an exploratory analysis of the existing literature on
traditional marketing and social media marketing, whereby data collection is gathered
from the knowledge base of marketing communication practitioners and consultant
despite the comparison between social media marketing and traditional marketing being
at a relatively early stage of development. Therefore, a deductive approach, informed by
a critical stance and executed using a qualitative methodology, has been adopted for this
study. Such an approach is useful to explore and develop rich descriptions of attitudes,
perceptions and behaviours that may act as the theory-building basis for the thesis
(Encyclopedia.com, 2014).
In the second stage, the researcher explored the tools and strategies of social media
marketing and traditional marketing in the case company Coca-Cola from both
qualitative and quantitative perspectives. For data collection, annual reports from year
1990 to 2014 were collected and analysed in intervals of decades despite using a
qualitative research methodology due to the secondary research nature of the thesis,
Quantitative information, figures and statistics from various credible online sources were
also gathered in the secondary data collection. Therefore, a deductive approach,
accompanying a critical stance was adopted for this study. It is executed using a
qualitative methodology combined with quantitative analysis (elements of calculations)
to strengthen the comparison. The approach helped the researcher to develop sound
understanding and arguments towards the tested theory.

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CHAPTER 4. RESULTS AND ANALYSIS
4.1 - Case Company: The Coca-Cola Company
4.1.1 - Company Profile
Founded and invented in 1886, the Coca-Cola Company is the ideation of a pharmacist
named John Pemberton that was seeking commercial success in the beverages industry
during the American post-war. However, Pemberton passed away suddenly in 1888,
leaving the anticipated commercial success a question mark. After Pemberton's death,
Asa Griggs Candler became the sole owner of Coca-Cola in 1891 by securing rights to
the business for a total of $2,300. The highlight of the company was when Candler
became the Coca-Cola’s first president and the first to bring real vision into the business
brand (World of Coca-Cola, 2015).
The company produces four of the world's five best-selling soft drinks having said that
the principal brand is of Coca-Cola itself – the world’s most valuable brand. With more
than 500 beverage brands that includes diet, regular and still beverages, the company
made significant efforts in supporting global sports such as FIFA World Cup and London
2012 Olympics amongst others. From the early beginning when just nine drinks a day
were served in Atlanta, Georgio Coca-Cola has grown to an average of 1.9 billion
servings every day at the present time. As the world’s most recognised trademark and
world’s largest beverage company, the Company’s operational reach encompasses more
than 200 countries worldwide (World of Coca-Cola, 2015).
Coca-Cola also became a key player in creating a sustainable framework for the world by
conducting healthy-living programmes, building sustainable communities, reducing and
recycling in packaging, cutting down carbon emissions, establishing a sustainable water
operation and creating an inclusive work environment for all.

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4.1.2 - Past Marketing
Although Coca-Cola started out with a unique market-tested formula, the brand’s
marketing took an apparent turn only after Candler took over the Company and
envisioned the soft drink as a consumable brand that consumers would ideally identify
with.
Past strategic objectives
As the post-war America was alive with optimism and prosperity, Coca-Cola connected it
is brand to fun, carefree American lifestyle, and applied an imagery of advertising that
connected with the spirit of the times. With an increasing amount of brand reputation,
Coca-Cola targeted different areas across the globe with different products for global
recognition. Underlying the success was Candler’s strategy to adopt a franchise model
(now called the Coca-Cola System) whereby all Coca-Cola’s bottling partners collaborate
with their customers using localized strategies developed in partnership with the
Company (Coca-Cola Journey, 2015).
Advertising
The first marketing execution took place in Coca-Cola history when Candler started a
mass coupon initiative by hiring traveling salesmen to pass out coupons for a free Coke.
This resulted in 10% of all products in the period of 1887 to 1920 to be given away in
order to build brand awareness among customers. Considered to be one of the innovative
tactics in 1887, couponing was followed by newspaper advertisements and the
distribution of promotional items bearing the Coca-Cola script to participating
pharmacies. With an advertising budget of only $11000, the promotional items Candler
used were plastering logos on calendars, posters, notebooks and bookmarks to reach
customers on a large stage (Feloni, 2015). It was one step forward taken in order to make
Coca-Cola a national brand, rather than just recognizing it as a regional brand.
The word of mouth extended the Company’s voice to national and global paradigm -
advertising the variation of soft drinks with new slogans for every global campaign
launch, something that Coca-Cola has been notable for since its inception in 1886.

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Billboards and print advertisements also played major role in traditional advertising.
Some of the most popular Coca-Cola slogans are:
1906 – “The Great National Temperance Beverage”
1938 – “The Best Friend Thirst Ever Had”
1956 – “Coca-Cola... Makes Good Things Taste Better”
1986 – “Red, White & You” (describing Coca-Cola classic)
2006 – “The Coke Side of Life”
2009 to present – “Open Happiness” (primary)
2015 to present – “Choose Happiness” (secondary)
Figure 8. Coca-Cola’s classic ads
While slogans like “It’s the Real Thing” (1970) was focused mainly on the quality of
Coca-Cola, while other slogans like “The Pause that Refreshes” (1929) mainly promoted
the drink’s refreshing taste, amongst others (Coca-Cola Journey, 2014). The company
delivers much consideration into factors that draw customers’ attention prior to creating
an advertising slogan, also called the “Clutter Buster” strategy that pins some uniqueness

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to the advertising message. By 1911, the company's advertising budget had increased to
more than $1 million.
Television Commercial
Airing advertisements on TV since the 1950s, Coca-Cola has produced multiple iconic
ads. Television advertising was initially an experimental medium for Coca-Cola as the
company struggled in coming up with a strategy to effectively reach consumers at a time
when very limited cities had television stations. Despite coming across this struggle, one
of the most memorable Coca-Cola TV commercials up to this day is 1993's "Northern
Lights," which marked the debut of the Coca-Cola polar bears. The polar bear
commercial had an initial run of 27 commercials designed to appeal to specific audiences,
including two ads for the 1994 Olympic Games.
Coca-Cola also used celebrity endorsement in its earlier television marketing. The first
celebrity to endorse Coca-Cola was music hall performer Hilda Clark in 1900. The best-
selling artist of all time and worldwide cultural icon, Elvis Presley, also promoted Coca-
Cola during his last tour of 1977 (The Library of Congress, 2000). Apart from other
celebrity endorsement like David Bowie and the Beatles, Coca-Cola was prominently
featured in various television programmes, films and pop culture in the last decades.
Sponsorship
The growth of commercial sponsorship has been one of the most striking development in
marketing communications over the last two decades. During the increasing
attractiveness of sponsorship in the 90s, Coca-Cola secured official worldwide
sponsorship rights to the 1990 Football World Cup. Similarly, the company entered into a
sub-category sponsorship contract with The National Hockey League (NHL) to become
official soft drink supplier. The NHL sponsorship contract with Coca Cola also entitles
the company to use logos of NFL teams, which legitimately publicised the brand’s
relationship with athletes and athletics. Apart from these, Coca-Cola has been officially
sponsoring the Super Bowl since 1991 amongst other events and has been an in-stadia
advertiser since 1950 (Coca-Cola Journey, 2014). However, it was only in the 1990s

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(1990-1999) that the company’s long association with sports sponsorship was
strengthened with ongoing support of the FIFA World Cup, extending to Olympic
Games, Rugby World Cup and the National Basketball Association (NBA).

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4.1.3 - Current Social Media Marketing
As one of the most iconic brands in history, Coca-Cola also has one of the largest social
media communities in the world. Coca-Cola has over 86 million followers and fans
throughout their main brand channels, at the same time supporting them with local pages
for different regions, continents and countries, or brand pages for subsidiary products
(Shively, 2014). Although Coca-Cola has multiple social media sites such as Google+,
Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Flickr, and Instagram amongst others, only
social media channels significant to Coca-Cola’s advertising and campaigns are chosen
for this thesis’ analysis.
“It is critical that we always remember who we are (a marketing company) and what our
role is in the social media community (to build our brands).” (Coca-Cola Journey, 2015)
Current Strategic Objectives
Coca-Cola’s main objective is maintaining a trustworthy local presence in every
community it is serving. To carry out this objective, they have come up with a strategy
that builds on fundamental strengths in marketing and innovation by increasing the level
of efficiency and effectiveness in interactions and generating new energy through core
brands that focus on health and wellness (Coca-Cola Journey, 2013). Their idea is to
increase their annual marketing budget, enter into new markets and launch many new
products, and develop a model to help retail customers maximize their sales.
Social Media Principles
With the increase in the globalisation of the world’s economies, merged with the rise of
the internet, great new challenges and opportunities have emerged for Coca-Cola to
navigate with the social terrain of consumers in the cyberspace. To address this issue,
Coca-Cola strongly adheres to its commitment to the online social media community
through the following core values (Digital Media Buzz, 2010):
1. Coca-Cola will be transparent in every social media engagement.

24
2. Coca-Cola will protect our consumers’ privacy in compliance with applicable
Privacy Policies, IT Security Policies, and laws, rules, and regulations.
3. Coca-Cola will respect copyrights, trademarks, rights of publicity, and other
third-party rights.
4. Coca-Cola will be responsible in our use of technology and will not knowingly
align our Company with any organizations or Web sites that use excessive
tracking software, adware, malware or spyware.
5. Coca-Cola will reasonably monitor our behavior in the social media space,
establish appropriate protocols for establishing our social media presence, and
keep appropriate records of our participation as dictated by law and/or industry
best practices.
Youtube
Youtube was the very first social media platform Coca-Cola joined to advertise its
targeted market. The primary Coca-Cola channel among other scores of the brand’s
channels had 556.4 million views and 475,000 subscribers in 2014. Coca-Cola embeds
YouTube videos on its own website other than creating effective YouTube channels. Not
only are advertisements and campaigns promoted via watch and share feature, some user-
generated content videos such as the popular Youtuber, ThatcherJoe’s reaction videos
also bring in creative integration and fun to Coca-Cola’s campaign advertising themes,
which is what makes it especially effective as a viral marketing strategy (Reelseo, 2015).
For instance, “Where Will Happiness Strike” campaign has generated more than 60,000
views to date.
Facebook
Coca-Cola’s biggest fanbase on Facebook consists of 82 million fans. The brand’s
Facebook page is used to promote the same brand initiatives and campaigns as it does
on other channels and platforms on social media. In one of the brand’s “Polar Bear”

25
campaign designed to raise awareness and generate sales in 2014, Coke utilized the full
range of Facebook features (including the Logout Experience, Target and Reach Blocks
and Page Post ads placed in the News Feed) inorder to activate the campaign online
before measuring the final results of the campaign. Questions and polls are often run by
the social team, however visual images attract a far better interaction and response from
fans in terms of comments and ‘likes’ (Econsultancy, 2013). Coca-Cola also has created
number of Facebook applications, including one called ‘When will happiness strike’
which is basically a video reel of the advertisements and another called ‘Ahh Giver’ that
allows users to send a message which can be personalized and a free Coke to a Facebook
friend (Facebook for Business, 2014). Facebook’s ability to generate huge audiences
makes it one of the perfect “hub” for content from across the board for large brands, and
Coca-Cola in this aspect is doing a great job of capitalizing on this.
Twitter
Coca-Cola has 2.4 million followers globally on Twitter. Over the last month, @cocacola
has Tweeted 1,994 times. That’s about 60 Tweets per day, which has generated 81,925
engagements that created over 1 BILLION potential impressions during the last 30 days.
As is common with most global brands, Coca-Cola has separate Twitter feeds for each of
the local markets in which it operates in order to show a proper image of what is going on
in that particular country (Komblum, 2014). It also consists of different dedicated pages
for various products and sub-brands, including Diet Coke, Coke Zero, and racing teams
amongst many other. Not only does the Company runs campaigns to engage its audience
and generate content that they can share, Coke is also creating a collection of advocates
via the enablement of crowd-sourced content. Similarly, Coke has proven very successful
in direct engagement on Twitter by responding to @mentions, which channels issues to
country-specific customer service hotlines. With an audience the size of Coca-Cola’s, this
attention to detail is a big responsibility, and one of the reasons for its success on Twitter.

26
4.2 – Comparison between traditional marketing and social media marketing
To effectively compare Coca-Cola’s traditional and social media marketing, comparisons
are segmented into three parts: communication; frequency; and effectiveness; to
respectively answer all three research objectives of this study. Effectiveness will be
compared in the manner of considering the communication and frequency effectiveness,
as well as the overall effectiveness of Coca-Cola’s marketing tools. The marketing
examples and campaigns considered in the comparisons are Coca-Cola’s most popular
and successful campaigns in history. For the purpose of establishing a clear
understanding of the analysis of data, the author has used only selected decades of Coca-
Cola’s advertising and only certain periods of time in Coca-Cola’s marketing history for
comparisons.
4.2.1 - Comparison 1: Communication
4.2.1.1 – Analysis of Data
Social-media advertising uses social communities, such as social networks and virtual
worlds as an advertising medium, just as traditional advertising focuses on the television
platform. In the case of Coca-Cola, the television advertising that focused on a one-way
communication has been replaced by social media as the new advertising channel that
promotes two-way communication. Communication perceived by the target audience will
be analysed through the continuum concept in the Communication Matrix that considers
the following – awareness; knowledge; consideration, preference and action (Semrush,
2015).

27
Figure 9. Communication Matrix
Coca-Cola’s “Share a Coke” campaign in 2011 is one of the most well-known campaigns
that has obtained great response worldwide and has been running for more than two years
now. Personalized Coke bottles and cans went beyond names and included popular
jargons like “Bestie” and “Wingman” used by the millennial demographic (Convince &
Convert, 2014).
The effect of communication on target audience to the Coca-Cola’s campaign is
summarized below (Incitrio, 2014):
 Awareness: Over a thousand names were made on the bottle and 17,000 virtual
name bottles were shared online across Europe.
 Knowledge: 998 million impressions on twitter and traffic on the Coke Facebook
site increased by 870%, with page ‘likes’ growing by 39%.
 Consideration: More than 230,000 tweets from more than 110,000 fans using the
#shareacoke hashtag. It has been a massive success on social networks as it turned
out that people love to share images of Coke bottles with their name on the side
on social media.
TARGET AUDIENCE
EFFECT
ORGANISATION
RESULTS
Awareness
Knowledge/
Understanding
Interest/Consideration
Support Preference Action

28
 Preference: More than 150 million personalized bottles were sold. The campaign
gives people the chance to order personalised Coke bottles through a Facebook
app, while in some countries the labelling has been changed altogether so all Coke
products have different names on them.
 Action: The numbers show that people love to see their names on branded
products. The campaign also created a gift-giving dynamic which further
encouraged the collectability of Coke products. People would scour retail
locations and even resort to eBay in the hopes of finding their name or a friend’s
name on a Coke bottle. The Coca-Cola bottle is one of the most iconic designs in
the world, and there is a real wonder for people to see their names on an iconic
image.
 Business Result: This type of campaign was first introduced in Australia in 2011
and the campaign saw massive success with a 7% increase in Coke consumption.
The company saw a 2.5% increase in total sales and soft-drink volume went up by
0.4%.
Social media played a major role in the success of the communication. When people
successfully found their name on a bottle, they were encouraged to share it on social
media with the hashtag #ShareaCoke. The sharing behaviour is an organic way of
spreading brand awareness throughout social media platforms.
Let’s compare the above to the communication in traditional advertising. By 1920, Coca-
Cola was well-known among on-the-go people who would meet up with their friends or
co-workers on their breaks because the legal prohibition at the time was keeping bars shut
down. Coca-Cola took advantage of this trend and came up with the slogan "The Pause
That Refreshes” which became the first popular marketing campaigns in Coca-Cola’s
marketing history. The latter advertising campaigns throughout 1970s using the same
slogan was combined with Coca-Cola’s Santa Claus. Advertising for Coca-Cola
definitely stands out in the minds of many Americans because Santa Clause was
illustrated as wearing bright red which essentially describes the perfect image of Coca-
Cola (Fluid Design and Marketing, 2014). Not only did the ads become popular, but they
have helped to shape the way all Americans look at Santa Clause. Particularly analysing

29
the “Pause That Refreshes” campaign, these were the effects of communication on target
audience (Building Pharma Brands, 2013):
 Awareness: The campaign first appeared in national magazines in 1929 and the
campaign ran through the 1950s reaching out to entire America. The advertising
message was not only appealing but also uplifting to a country that was at war.
 Knowledge: Consumer began understanding the brand image of Coca-Cola as
"pause" became synonymous with Coca-Cola among consumers.
 Consideration: People would consider Coke in making purchase decisions
because the advertisements made Coke familiar to Americans.
 Preference: A research showed that an overwhelming 84 percent of consumers
continued drinking Coke. The brand remained to be the popular beverage at that
time, despite no longer having trouble in selling during the winter season.
 Action: People continued to associate and drink Coca-Cola into the Great
Depression.
 Business Result: The success of the campaign led the Advertising Age in 1999 to
rank it No. 2 on its list of the top ad campaigns of the 20th century.
The communication in Coca-Cola traditional marketing as the television advertisings
were used extensively to emphasize the brand image of Coca-Cola. Messages sent
through images, words and audio materials in the traditional marketing promoting Coca-
Cola’s brand image can be classified into three categories: Coca-Cola satisfies thirst;
drinking Coca-Cola is stylish, and drinking Coca-Cola is a lifestyle (Advertising Age,
2003). The entertainment value guided the company’s success in communicating the
brand effectively to consumers.
The social media marketing matrix shows the two-way communication that occurs
between customer and Coke via online impression, and between customer and customer
via content sharing across Twitter, Facebook and other social networks. The interactivity
and voluntary participation of the consumers and their transformation from spectator into
actor promoted successful communication for Coca-Cola over the years. Online word-of-
mouth communication is owned and controlled by consumers, although it is influenced
by traditional marketers and marketing activities like Coca-Cola. It often has higher
credibility and trust than traditional media. Meanwhile, in traditional marketing, there is

30
only one-way communication between Coke and consumer, and limited communication
between consumers.
We can similarly compare the communication objectives of Coca-Cola that have changed
over the years. Traditionally, the communications objective the brand emphasized was
reminder advertising that aims to maintain brand awareness in the minds of target
audience. However, the current communication strategy is extended to the following:
 To increase awareness among the people facing the products by a significant
percentage.
 To emphasis on the awareness of its new products compared to competitors in
market and higher differentiation in awareness compared to other brands.
 To reposition the brand as younger and fun to connect to younger consumers.
 To maintain the brand preference among consumers and reinforce brand
penetration in leading consumers.
One common strategy between the traditional and current communication objective is –
to maintain brand awareness. It is safe to say that the traditional marketing was “trying to
sell” to increase brand awareness while social media marketing attempts towards
“making connections” with the consumers to increase brand awareness; a paradigm shift
from brand marketing towards relationship marketing; from brand-centric towards
customer-centric; from one-directional to multi-directional dialogue; and from non-
participatory to participatory in its communication (Erdogmus & Cicek, 2012). The
reason propounding the shift is the need to achieve brand image and loyalty among
consumers. A study shows that at least half of Twitter and Facebook users say they have
become more likely to talk about, recommend or purchase Coca-Cola after they began
communicating with the brand on social media.

31
4.2.1.2 – Findings on Communication
Key findings suggest that the success of communication with target audience in social
media marketing is more successful than in Coca-Cola’s traditional marketing. Despite
sharing the common objective of maintaining brand awareness, the traditional approach
relies on creative excellence that links the brand image to fun and lifestyle
(entertainment) has traditionally guided the brand’s communication success; while social
media relies on communication excellence that connects the brand image to customers.
Although the humorous ads and unique slogans were authentic to the brand’s goal, the
sensation of entertainment message is short-lived because it entertains consumers rather
than communicating with them. With social media, Coca-Cola gains better
communication grounds with the consumers to build brand loyalty and maintain brand
preference beyond traditional methods.

32
4.2.2 - Comparison 2: Frequency
Due to the nature of the beverage industry, Coca-Cola has made a large commitment to
advertising, making it the largest advertiser in the industry by the end of year 2014. With
an increase in total advertising spending by 7.3% between 2012 and 2014; Coca-Cola's
‘spend’ accounted for 6.9% of its total revenue in these three years. Coca-Cola
persistently created advertising campaigns from the 1970s till the 1990s, which kept the
brand message alive, backed up its “happiness” ideology and forced people not to forget
them as the leaders who brought ‘happiness’ to their consumers (Overt Ollusion, 2012).
Thereby, in light of Coca Cola’s media tactics and scheduling, the frequency of
advertising is the most optimal approach that Coca-Cola considers in increasing sales and
in maintaining Coca-Cola’s superiority in the market.
However, the media scheduling of Coca-Cola’s advertising campaigns was using the
pulsing strategy. Coca-Cola realised that the seasonality of sales for Coca-Cola
fluctuates, so heavy advertising is not always necessary. With a budget of $180 million,
the Company decided to use pulsing strategy not only for more reach, but also to
maintain and increase the levels of frequency for their advertising; and use reminder
advertising to remind consumers of the product instead from time to time due to the
typical maturity stage of Coca-Cola’s product life cycle. Coca-Cola emphasized on
pulsing strategy because it switches from a high to low intensity advertising cycle as the
brand is widely known and used among consumers for a longer time, and because the
effects of goodwill decrease the need to maintain high intensity advertising in a longer
period (Lamb & Hair, 2010).

33
Figure 10. Product life cycle of Coca-Cola year 2014.
However, the pulsing strategy differed in the traditional marketing and social media
marketing of Coca-Cola. Traditionally, Coca-Cola was consistently making impression
through advert prints, TV commercials and radio by talking to (or at) the customer.
Television was the dominating media mix, occupying 97% of their advertising and
producing the highest frequency rate among consumers compared to other traditional
marketing tools. For instance, Coca-Cola aimed for an average frequency exposure of
five for its POWERRade television ads, resulting in each television viewer viewing it at a
frequency of 5/5. The frequency level was limited to the exposure of TV commercials
and the word-of-mouth resulting from the brand awareness, helping Coca-Cola to
maintain the desired level of frequency.
The frequency level is lower than the recent decades because Cola has focused on
average reach goal of 63/63, and a medium frequency goal of 7/7 at normal periods of the
year. The reach goals of the June/July/August period are a high of 80 with a high
frequency of 9, while the winter season including the months of November/December are
a high reach of 80 with a high frequency of 9. The frequencies during these seasons are
increased due the summer and Christmas season, reflecting the pulsing strategy that are
relatively higher than the older frequency rate (Coca-Cola Journey, 2015).

34
When “Holidays are Coming” was first introduced in 1995, the campaign reached people
in a global scale, establishing a wide-viewing audience of all ages. The 20-year-old TV
commercial that is aired during Christmas, was traditionally shown during advert breaks
for prime time slots such as Britain's Got Talent advert breaks to spread awareness
among viewers that the advert has returned. The advert is introduced with some
modifications every year with minimal audio and visual diﬀerences.
However, Coca-Cola decided to launch the campaign’s Christmas truck tour for the first
time in 20 years using social media. To promote the marketing stunt in 2014, Coca-Cola
encouraged its followers to share a tweet on the company’s Twitter page to allow the
public to determine when the route would be released. The company released the full
location list of the nationwide tour after receiving 500 retweets. This reflects a form of
viral advertising whereby Coca-Cola transmits its advert online, through mainly Twitter,
YouTube and Facebook which is much faster and has a much wider reach. The content is
then transmitted to peers and other consumers within the social circles through the same
social media platforms, increasing the potential of the campaign in becoming viral and
having an exponentially growing diffusion rate as well as higher frequency in reaching
out to more consumers online.
Often, reach is the result of the advertising frequency. Due to the exposure of the
campaign in social media and the frequency of consumers sharing the campaign tweets
and related campaign posts, the Coca-Cola’s Truck Tour website received nearly two
million page views, while 50,000 official customer photos were taken across the tour’s 46
stops, higher than the reach achieved using the traditional marketing tools
(NetImperative, 2015). Relatively, people were encouraged to share their personally-
captured photos of the truck on social media platforms and tweet with the hashtag
#holidaysarecoming; and by tweeting the company directly @CocaCola_GB. This helped
to maintain and increase Coca-Cola’s desired frequency levels.
The frequency of Coca-Cola’s advertising saw significant rise since 2012 due to increase
in customer-generated advertising and customer generated content that goes viral through
online shares and tweets. Creativity from customer generated content engages customers
with the brand in a highly effective way because they are perceived as interestingly

35
ordinary and attractive by customers, that further encourages customer participation in
the commercials broadcasted by Coca-Cola and at simultaneously, creates viral buzz over
the brand.
4.2.2.2 – Findings on Frequency
The qualitative and descriptive analyses suggest that Coca-Cola have always focused on
the frequency of advertising to boost sales and have shifted to pulse strategy in its
maturity stage to increase and maintain the frequency level. However, in the traditional
approach, the frequency level and consumer reach was limited to TV commercials,
billboards, etc. This was a result of interrupted marketing, which pushes the marketing
message onto consumers. Hence, more advertising was needed to maintain the goodwill
effect of Coca-Cola on consumers. In contrast to that, the social media marketing that
operates in pulsing strategy incorporates less of push marketing and more of viral
marketing that allows consumers to share and associate the brand to their peers. The
frequency level attained at this level is obtained and heightened through consumer
generated content and advertising of the brand, which is a much effective and convincing
approach without being obliged to traditional commercial awareness. Although frequency
is strategized differently by the different tools of marketing, it is still the catalyst towards
successful marketing.

36
4.2.3 - Comparison 3: Effectiveness
Although streams of comparison were made between traditional and social media
marketing, a complete comparison still requires the direct distinction in performance of
these two, using the same platform of marketing channel. Considering Coke to be one of
the biggest sponsors in the past decades, and as it still is today; the author will compare
the company’s performance of sponsorship in the past, and sponsorship at the present
time with the existence of social media to identify the differences in the effectiveness of
these tools.
Let us focus on Coca-Cola’s sponsorship for Super Bowl and narrow down to the earlier
decades of its advertising. The company first advertised during the Super Bowl in 1990s
to pitch in Diet Coke and Surge to the market. As the pioneering brand in the industry,
Coca-Cola earned 43% of the domestic market by 1995 (Bruni, 2007). However, the
company's share within the soft beverages market declined in 1999, having its first drop
in six years, as consumers began withholding from soda drinks due to higher selling
price. The reason pertaining was slower global sales growth due to major price
adjustment in that year, proving that despite the traditional sowing of commercial
awareness consistently through sponsorship, the company’s sales growth was still
prominently influenced by external variables such as market dynamics (Porter, 2008).
Between 2000 and 2001, Coca-Cola advertised in Super Bowl each year with a total
advertising spending of $61.0 million. Although the change in share price in 10 years
showed a surplus of 51.8 per cent, the market share declined by 2.3 per cent between
2002 and 2010, with a 22% loss in Coca-Cola Classics during the period of decline
(247wallst, 2014). This is yet another evidence of how higher sponsorship spend may not
directly secure the market leadership of brand due to external intervening dynamics.

37
Figure 11. The increasing advertising spending for SuperBowl tournaments year
2003-2014.
From 2011 to 2012, the sponsorship spending worldwide have increased by 6 per cent in
sports alone, the highest increase recorded compared to the previous decades. In view of
Super Bowl, the average rate for a 30-second advertisement has increased by more than
70% compared to the past decade (IEGSR, 2014). Coca-Cola’s turning point came with
the 2012 Super Bowl during this point of sponsorship spur, when the brand not only used
its iconic polar bears, but also used a social live stream that extends across digital and
mobile media. The social stream offers a second-screen campaign that features the
animated bears reacting real time to the game, fans, commercials, and the halftime
entertainments as they play out. The live streams were housed on Coca-Cola’s website,
while Coca-Cola's Twitter account and Facebook page were used to accommodate the
clips extracted from the live stream and to send out note to fans in the voices of
characters representing the bear (AdWeek, 2012).

38
When the Polar Bowl social strategy was launched, 9 million consumers across various
social media platforms engaged and checked in on what the polar bears were up to
making the experiment a resounding success. The consumers spent an average of 28
minutes engaging with the Polar Bowl, which exceeded the estimate of 2.5 minutes.
Similarly, Coca-Cola’s Twitter followers grew by 38% within a four-hour period during
Super Bowl. The key success to Polar Bowl was Coca-Cola’s initiatives leg work on
social media platforms before and after the Super Bowl (AdAge, 2012). Prior to the
game, Coca-Cola activated multiple digital networks, TV commercials and encouraged
consumers to RSVP for the event on Facebook. More than 30,000 consumers registered
for the event, 15 times the expected number. After the Big Game, the company allowed
video snippets from the Polar Bowl to be tweeted and shared by consumers.
Donna Hoffman and Marek Fodor asserted that the effectiveness of marketing
communications is best measured by the brand engagement and brand awareness
generated by a marketing tool. By redefining the company’s marketing in sponsorship
terms, Coca-Cola successfully encouraged crowd engagement to develop a two-way
communication with consumers during the Super Bowl game. Due to increased social
media engagement, Coca-Cola drove incremental traffic to its owned media and delivered
the brand message at highly competitive Company Profile Matrix (CPM) that generates
comparatively higher return of investment to the brand. However, this can only happen at
the condition of identifying the content that really works in Coca-Cola’s social media
engagement; embracing the fact that content creation has played the key moderating role
in the effectiveness of Coca-Cola’s social media marketing.
Despite traditionally using creative advertising and commercials to attract target audience
and considering how it has worked for Coca-Cola’s sponsorship for many years, the
landscape has been changing rapidly to the extent consumers want more than just a 30-
second advertisement. Coca-Cola has shifted from “creative excellence” towards “content
excellence” to strategize its marketing communications (Adelson, 2014). To achieve
content excellence, Coca-Cola began using conversations and creating stories that can be
dynamically expressed through connections in the social media platforms. An emphasis is
placed on the quality of content and technology to empower highly relevant content

39
delivery to every corner of the online community. To help achieve this, Coca-Cola
segments its content creation into: 10 per cent high-risk; 20 per cent of broad-scale and
proven content; and 70 per cent of low-risk content (CMO, 2013). The strategic risk
taking behaviour of Coca-Cola allows its content to be continuously evolving, making
room for them to connect with their audience in new ways. Its content budget is also
skewed to experimental efforts, through which Coca-Cola aggressively seeks to learn
more about and produce content that mobilises communities. This experimental provision
is evidently seen in the earlier discussed Coca-Cola’s Polar Bowl campaign that used
social live stream for the first time in its marketing history.
Figure 12. Coca-Cola’s strategy of content creation.
This is the reason why despite spending 7.0% on average of its revenues on advertising,
Coca-Cola have considerably increased its brand power over the years. Some of the
overall success metrics for Coca-Cola seen in 2012, at the same year the Polar Bowl
campaign was launched were improvement in consumers’ perception of the Company,
increased yearly consumer net-sentiment, decrease in spontaneous negative posts and
most importantly - a CPM significantly higher than prime time TV commercials
traditionally used.

40
In other instances, Coca-Cola leverages social media during the NCAA’s annual
basketball championships. In year 2010, Coke reserved 20% of its tournament spending
for social media – an increased spending of 2% allocated for social media marketing in
2010. Similarly, marketing around the London Games in 2012 through social media also
helped boost Coca-Cola’s sales volume worldwide and reduced the company’s
promotional expenses by $30 million in the third quarter of year. Despite the
improvements, Coca-Cola's fourth-quarter net income declined by 8.4%; global sales
decreased by 3.6% while sales volume in North America fell by 1% (Sports Networker,
2013).
Figure 13. Coca-Cola’s decline in sales year 2005-2014.
Despite greater customer engagement through social media marketing and Coca-Cola’s
content creation being a key contributor to the success, an existing gap between Coca-
Cola’s effectiveness of social media marketing and its effect on the brand’s sales could
perhaps be the rising awareness among consumers about the health hazards of soft-drinks
as Coke’s competitors are also facing a steady decline. Michelle Obama’s nutrition
campaign and the general explosion in health consciousness worldwide has lately
challenged Coke ability to keep up with the changing consumer lifestyle trend. 63% of
consumers said they are more likely to cut down on beverages that consists of ingredients
harmful to their health (AdWeek, 2014). Although soft-drinks still make up to a $100

41
billion of beverage refreshment segment in the US, research from Euromonitor
International predicts global health-and-wellness beverages segment will expand by
another $38 billion within four years beginning 2014.
4.2.3.2 – Findings on effectiveness
A notable increase in brand engagement is seen only at the presence of social media
marketing in Coca-Cola’s sponsorship, proving that social media marketing is more
effective than traditional marketing. Compared to the earlier way of Coke in advertising
and distributing the Super Bowl message, as more audiences shift to social networks and
mobile, the impact of traditional advertising needs to be extended to include the new
watering holes for the youth - Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and mobile. Coca-Cola has
transitioned from using sponsorship as an instrument of “traditional media buy” towards
using it as a “crowd engagement opportunity”.
Although the transition incorporates a mix of digital, mobile and traditional marketing,
social media marketing seems to be the top tier marketing tool that leads to brand
engagement, leading to higher CPM and return of investment. At this point, it is
important to understand that the secret to the social media engagement success lies in its
content creation. Due to Coca-Cola’s aim to achieve “content excellence” and to deliver
it by considering experimental campaigns, the company has achieved higher
effectiveness in its social media marketing. However, both in traditional and social media
marketing, market dynamics such as the consumers’ rising health awareness seem to be
an intervening variable that affects the marketing tools’ dependent relationship with
Coca-Cola’s sales, presenting a gap to this thesis.

42
4.3 – Discussion of Key Findings
The findings arising from the preceding sections make it apparent that marketing is no
longer a one dimensional considering the fact that big companies such as Coca-Cola has
evolved from the traditional way of directly imposing the advertising message on
customers towards allowing customers to voluntarily seek out the brand’s marketing
content on the internet. The process of engaging the brand and target audience through
communications and frequency in marketing communications mix is best shown and
summarized in the marketing model (Doyle, 2000) below:
Figure 14. The brand engagement framework.
The key findings in the first comparison shows that the success of communication with
target audience in social media marketing is more successful than in Coca-Cola’s
traditional marketing. In the second comparison it is proven that frequency rate in social
media marketing is higher than traditional marketing due to the moderating presence of
viral marketing in social media platforms. In the third comparison, it is proven that social
media marketing is more effective than traditional marketing, content excellence being a
1. Attract users
2. Customer
engagement
3. Customer
retention
4. Learn about
preferences
5. Relate and
customize solution

43
competitive advantage to it; but is affected by external factors such as the changing
consumer taste.
It seems like Coca-Cola does not have a problem in attracting users as it has reached
maturity stage in its product cycle. However, it is consistently working on its
communications and frequency to maintain brand awareness, and more importantly, to
increase customer retention. Customer retention seems to be the focus area of Coca-Cola
in all of its strategies. As the thesis discovers an existing gap between Coca-Cola’s
effectiveness of social media marketing and its effect on the brand’s sales which is the
rising awareness among consumers about the health hazards of soft-drinks, Coca-Cola
also fulfils the fourth and fifth stage of learning about customer preferences. This cycle is
repetitively undergone by most corporations regardless of the product type and industry.
What is forcing companies like Coca-Cola to adapt to social media marketing is that the
old business model can no longer meet the rising expectations of consumers in the
information age. In the networked world of social media marketing, competitive
advantage is gained not from selling an unbeatable proposition to as many people as
possible, but from matching the needs of the individual customer more precisely.
Traditional marketing has focused on seeking to develop a unique selling proposition that
would give the ﬁrm a differential advantage to a market or market segment. This is
because the information revolution has evidently changed marketing from mass
communications to one-to-one customised marketing.
Although this offers the opportunity for higher proﬁt margins, greater loyalty and a
bigger share of the customer’s spending to innovators like Coke, it seems to be
challenged by another aspect of the information revolution – rising customer
expectations, addressing the aforementioned gap of increasing health awareness among
consumers. Meeting customer needs requires market segmentation to obtain the similarity
of needs among customers. Although market segmentation is necessary to most product
category, the objective has changed from traditionally classifying similar needs of
customers towards identifying the potential lifetime value of the customer to the
organisation. Coke needed to get back into the cultural relevance and modern appeal to a
new and younger generation (a different market segmentation) while retaining the brand

44
relationship with older consumers which reflects one-to-one customised marketing
through social media marketing.
Social media has enabled consumers to exercise their own voice, not as passive
respondents in traditional brand-consumer relationship, but as active members of brand
communities who have the confidence to approach and work within the brand’s space.
Leading brands in social media believe that co-creating contents are essential to
encourage users to become actively involved with a brand. Thus, in order to develop
loyalty with consumers, some brands have decided to stop talking or selling “at” them,
and instead market with them. Some brands term this as “relationship marketing”; rather
than putting much focus on transactional marketing as the ultimate aim is to build
stronger and longer relationships with customers, to generate trust and to develop
consumer loyalty. In view of that, online relationship marketing requires the facilitation
of active interaction process, communication, dialogue and value which contributes
towards customer engagement following customer retention.
One newly explored subject in this thesis is also viral marketing that seems to affect the
overall media scheduling strategy for organisations like Coca-Cola. Viral advertising
focuses on generating product or brand awareness, not on pushing information about the
brand product or traditional advertising messages. Since it is an unconventional
marketing technique that enables co-creation of unique and compelling messages and
content, it may have the highest impact in the frequency rate when the content is focused
on engaging the customer, rather than presenting a call to action. However, the success
rate of viral marketing relies on the nature of understanding in knowledge-sharing;
persuasion by influencers; and responses from recipients in online networks as they
should be viewed as knowledgeable helpers in the social network rather than as mere
“agents” of the brand.
In recognizing the effectiveness of social media marketing, the web is a place where the
customer decides whether to interact and who to interact with. It provides an opportunity
for organisations to grasp the new possibilities to customise their products to the needs of
individual consumers (customer engagement) and so form enduring relationships
(customer retention). Social media marketing in itself, has developed from adhering and

45
giving message to the target audience to socially engage with them; towards receiving
and exchanging brand perceptions as a form of customer engagement. While brands tread
carefully with social media, it is the brand’s responsibility to creatively engage with
target audience rather than alienating them which ultimately prioritizes quality content
creation rather than simple messages that customers can connect to. This reflects the
significance of consumer engagement for brands.
The findings also shows the importance of building a strong marketing content towards
achieving high customer retention. Coca-Cola’s shift from creativity towards content
excellence is a fairly good model to other companies in choosing the appropriate
marketing content. The right marketing content will reach a more diverse range of people
compared to the mass media whereby content is easily distributed to a large number of
people, as the network is formed voluntarily through possible connections and involves
fewer steps for sharing information. Despite many companies underestimating the costs
of maintaining fresh ongoing marketing content simply because they claim the social
media platform to be cheaper, it is right to believe that the advertising budget should be
increased to boost sales even in the case of social media marketing.
An important consideration to almost everything stated above is also that, the commercial
success achieved through the social media campaigns comes to life because the social
media infrastructure has reached maturity to satisfy the needs of marketing through real-
time measurability and value proposition to the brand. At such maturity, the efficiency
and effectiveness of social media marketing is revealed. However, the efficiency and
effectiveness of the marketing success depends on the larger brand objectives instead of
solely satisfying the internal need for measurement such as boosting sales and increasing
ROI. The goals are more tangible then the ROI are. In the company case, the brand
strives to maintain brand awareness and brand preference (as seen in the marketing
model) and strives to meet those goals in order to meet the company’s vision.

46
Research done in this thesis could have incorporated more quantitative data that focuses
the utmost used and effective social media to consumers. Metrics of measurement for
financial rations could also be incorporated into future study upon this topic. The
researcher could have conduct the same research at different cultural settings from a
much narrowed perspective and examine the variation that occurs to the customer
engagement and customer retention factor.

47
CHAPTER 5. CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER
RESEARCH
When traditional marketing meets information revolution, opportunities are created for
many new huge business opportunities to exploit the informational advantage of the
Internet. This alongside the emergence of information age has radically changed the
dimensions of the marketing communications mix, causing shifts in the marketing
strategies of organizations from traditional marketing to social media marketing.
Traditional marketing is a highly effective way to reach a broad consumer base, but
social media marketing is a great way to reach out to a specific audience and build
relationships with the consumer that are deeper and more relevant. Traditional marketing
tactics all have historically high success rates. Recently, however, the success rates for
these tools have been failing and a solution seems to be shifting the paradigm to social
media marketing. Social media marketing, though relatively new when compared to the
history of traditional media, can provide with maximum exposure and more interaction
with their customers. Direct engagement with users via social media infrastructure
precedes the one-way communication that traditional marketing was previously using.
Due to the maturity of social media marketing, it can be said that social media marketing
has the ability to consolidate a valuable content and democratize access to it without
involving traditional marketing. In some instances, however, traditional marketing is
combined with social media marketing to produce greater marketing communications
effectiveness.
Viral marketing have also gained special attention in this thesis as moderating variable as
it results in improved frequency rate audience and higher consumer reach. Because social
media is a powerful tool to find consumer influencers, engaging them, and generating
brand advocates, viral campaigns are established and online word of mouth is fostered
through content sharing on social networks. This means moving beyond “old-school”
approaches to embrace the principles of relationship marketing - building virtual
communities in which customers can interact with one another to share insights and
relevant information, increasing the frequency rate and reach of advertising.

48
Another important discover of the research is the significance of social media in
facilitating a successful marketing content. Despite other factors that may affect it, this is
where the strength of content marketing as the moderating lies and influences the next
step towards customer retention. Content marketing plays a major role in social media
marketing because an authentic content proves to be more successful than well-executed
polished content in traditional marketing. To help the audience see the social objectives
clearly, and only when the authenticity ensue in the changing social landscape, a brand is
step into customer retention. Despite the influence of content in the effectiveness of
marketing, other moderating variables such as changing consumer needs still
considerably affect the return on investment of the marketing tool used.
However, in both cases, the company’s intended corporate objectives matter the most. In
order to continuously develop successful strategies that break new ground and lead to
deeper customer engagement, powerhouses like Coca-Cola and other firms must align
themselves with social media marketing that enable them to crystalize their ultimate
vision and go beyond the unexpected. Successful brand marketers understand that
traditional marketing fieldwork must be integrated with newer models that are rich with
engagement, conversation, analytics and content – the essence of social media marketing.
Big brands need to create an even better brand experience and empower their marketers
with tools that will allow them to do so simply and effectively, to obtain the advantage
they need to stay ahead of the curve.

49
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