Coca-Cola has for decades established themselves as a brand reckoning force through catchy slogans, effective advertising and strategic placement. Remember this commercial from the late 70s featuring Mean Joe Green?
This commercial made Coca-Cola an even catchier household name. For years afterwards, the commercial and the actors appeared as a part of the Super Bowl activities, making them even more popular and the catchy slogan even more effective. And although Coke has a dedicated, established following, they still work incredibly hard to continue branding themselves and making their presence known in most every venue. This is evidence that no matter how popular your brand is, or how strong your advertising efforts are, you must still work diligently to ensure that you remain number one and a viable, competitive force.
The world of online social media marketing is immensely effective. Its popularity is becoming even more noticeable with the frequent introduction of new sites, some appearing almost weekly. Smart companies and even smarter bloggers know what the impact of being connected with the right social networking sites can have for their businesses. In order to make a difference, the sites have to update their blogs or sites frequently, spend a fair amount of time networking, publish information that provides value and offer their services. Doing these things are critical to the life of the online business.
One particularly interesting social networking idea that I have recently discovered by the infamous Coca-Cola is the site called Coketag. According to their site:
CokeTag is a new Facebook widget for sharing links developed by none other than Coca-Cola. Basically, CokeTag allows you to make a customizable widget including links from anywhere and share it with your friends.
Facebook is the social site of choice that CokeTag uses to promote its features. They offer that the widget will be available on other platforms soon, but right now Facebook is it. I really like the concept that CokeTag offers (connecting people). I especially like the branding technique that they employ. Their name and label are on the product and the customer experiences that each time they use the CokeTag product. Very well done. And from what it appears, the Coca-Cola folks are the first, if not only, corporate giant to market this service. (See reviews.)
But, connecting people via social marketing isn’t so new, is it? No, it really isn’t. All the cool kids are doing it. But, I wonder what makes Coca-Cola’s CokeTag so special and so popular then? Is it their effective branding technique? Their household name? Their wonderful flavor? What do you think? Would you even use the CokeTag platform?
Coca-Cola has spent a lot of time building their presence and that has made them very popular. Period. Essentially what Coke is doing is what every online corporate entity should do: embrace heartily the effects of an internet presence and capitalize on it. Even if one doesn’t “get” the platform at first, Coke would have been successful in their efforts which is to (continue to) brand themselves in the industry through all media efforts.
Yes, I do think they’ve done it again.
I am a freelance writer, blogger and professional motivational speaker. I primarily focus on business content, offering my clients strategic marketing strategies for their businesses. I have been an entrepreneur for over 13 years, after having worked extensively in corporate America.
