Launch of Zico in the 2012 London Olympics - Assignment Example

?LAUNCH OF ZICO IN THE LONDON OLYMPICS Coca Cola’s Zico claims to be pure coconut water which is cholesterol free with no added sugar. With sucha great combination of nutritional facts the drink promises to offer a number of benefits such as muscle development, natural energy, weight-loss aid, improved heart health and blood pressure control. Thus, the target audience comprises of young, energetic, sport loving and health conscious individuals between the age brackets 15-35. Moreover, it is also worth saying that we cannot rule out the potential target audience which lies beyond the bracket: those who are above the age of 35. This is because of the fact that considering the advantages coconut water has to offer to the consumer, it can prove to be an essential drink for the elderly too. Keeping in mind the target audience, Coca Cola is launching Coca Cola Zico in the UK market by using the London 2012 Olympics as the major platform for it since the Olympics is considered to be the most prestigious sporting event to take place once in four years. The Zico campaign can certainly attract a lot of audience who are sport loving. For this to happen, Coca Cola can employ both advertising and public relations program to achieve their aim to successfully launch their new product. Let’s first define the two marketing strategies. Advertising is an act of selling a product by conveying a message to the audience about the existence of a product. It can be done using both the print and electronic media to reach the masses. On the other hand, Public Relations (PR) refers to the establishment of strong relations with the company’s publics which helps in building a strong brand image. Public relations can include activities like sponsorships, covering sport events, etc. (CIPR, 2012) Carrying out advertising may not sound as simple because it entails a lot of aspects that need to be taken account of. Marketers all over the world come across many hurdles before coming up with an advertising strategy. These environmental challenges include the following: 1. Demographics: income distribution, changing lifestyle, standard of living and the likes; 2. Economic environment: per capita income, state of the economy, etc. ; 3. Cultural environment: for instance, the ad on the right of Vita Coco, the market leader in terms of coconut water in the US, maybe unacceptable in the South Asian culture but accepted in the UK culture; (Buss, 2012) 4. Political and social environment: legislation, ethics, laws, society itself, etc. Since the case is such that a new product is being launched in to the UK market, the role of advertising shall be to both inform and remind the consumers about Zico. The reason for this is that the public relations program will be taking place during the Olympics and it will be followed up by the advertising campaign. The initial step to outline an advertising campaign for Zico would be to decide upon the advertising budget that Coca Cola will spend after the end of London Olympics. Since it’s a new product, it will require a large budget. Considering the ?500,000 media budget, a 60:40 split should be done with advertising getting more as opposed to public relations. The primary reason is that advertising helps in conveying the message to a larger audience with a lower cost per audience. Considering the budget constraints, it is imperative to make the best use of the finance available. Market share also plays an impact on the advertising budget. Since we don’t have sufficient information as to how many players are already in the market, it’s hard to comment about it. For instance, the US market comprises of Pepsi’s ONE and Vita Coco that are doing very well. In case, they exist in the UK market, the role of advertising will also be persuasive in addition to informing. (Esterl, 2012) The second step in designing the advertising strategy would be to create an advertising message. In order to overcome the issue of message retention and attention, the campaign has to be clutter breaking. The concept coconut water is rather fresh and new as opposed to fizzy drinks. Considering the increase in the level of awareness in the audience as far as health and fitness is concerned, Zico can come up with a clutter breaking campaign by highlighting the “healthy” drink tagline or incorporate famous athletes/sportsmen like Messi and Ronaldo who play football in the European Circuit. The execution of the message plays a key role in the advertising strategy. Coca Cola can employ various execution styles e.g. slice of life, lifestyle, mood or image, personality symbol, scientific evidence and Musical. Zico can represent a healthy lifestyle by informing the audience about the 100% natural ingredients and its benefits to health. Moreover, since the launch is taking place in the summer season, the brand could capitalize on calling the drink refreshing and soothing. That could help penetrate into the market easily as demand for cold beverages is on a high in the summers and especially in the UK as well where record temperatures are observed every year thanks to global warming. As far as the question about which sport to target is concerned, Coca Cola can actually use football to base their campaign upon. The reason to target football for Zico’s campaign is because of the simple fact that football is the most watched and played sport in the UK. Since it has the highest viewership, Zico can expect to convey its message via advertising to a much larger audience. Furthermore, since it’s a high involvement game so viewers are still tuned into the same channel during the mid-break waiting for the expert analysis. Advertisements can still run and promotional activities can still take place during that time as well. Hence, airing the advertisements during the prime time needs to take place. Ads must run during commercial breaks on sports channel like sky sports since the target audience is the youth which is health conscious and inclined towards sports. Billboards can be placed near the Olympics venue to catch the attention of the audience. Furthermore, billboards can also be placed at concentrated locations where there is a lot of movement e.g. in the Oxford Street. Sign boards can also be placed at the venue which shall be viewed by not only the audience at the venue but also people sitting back home. On the other hand, public relation is a much cheaper means of promoting a product as opposed to advertising. Public relation can be performed using the following activities: press releases, product publicity, investor relations and lobbying. Since Coca Cola is the main partner of the London Olympics, it can use Zico to sponsor the event. This helps in creating a strong brand image since it helps in creating a direct and a strong link with the audience. CSR activities can also be used as a public relation activity by sponsoring NGOs, etc. Promotion is not all about selling the product directly to the consumers. The brand ‘Zico’ could be used to sponsor teams in different sports during the London Olympics. Coca Cola, being the major partner of the London Olympics, could use Zico to sponsor the press releases and press conferences. This is also considered part of the public relation activities. Advertising and public relation are both forms of promoting a brand or a product. Both of them complement each other despite not meaning the same. If advertising is working well by increasing awareness and persuading the audience to buy the product, public relations could help establish a strong brand equity that shall last for a long time. Finally, it is also important to lay emphasis upon the evaluation of the effectiveness of the strategy implemented. The most common method of evaluating is to observe the change in the sales level. If it has increased over time, then it indicates a positive sign. On the other hand, it may well not mean that the strategy implemented was perfect. Imperfections do exist and the sales might have increased due to external factors like the weather conditions, maybe. Zico’s campaign may not have been flawless but a hot summer in the UK would have contributed more to high sales than the campaign itself. Evaluation can be done to measure the communication effects in a controlled setting where subjects can be shown ads of Zico and then asked to recall. Such lab experiments can help yield valuable information about the effectiveness of advertising. Surveys and questionnaires can also be used to determine how well the campaign worked and how the audience responded to it even though it is a time consuming and an expensive process. Sales and profit effect can also be used to measure the effectiveness of the campaign e.g. what changes in sales and profit might occur if awareness increases by 20%. This may not help us get accurate information and it may also be misleading because sales and profitability are affected by many other factors as well. Bibliography Buss, D., 2012. Coconut Water Draws Battle Line in the Cola Wars. [Online] Available at: http://www.brandchannel.com/home/post/Coconut-Water-Battle-021412.aspx [Accessed 3 May 2012]. CIPR, 2012. What is PR?. [Online] Available at: http://www.cipr.co.uk/content/careers-cpd/careers-pr/what-pr [Accessed 3 May 2012]. Esterl, M., 2012. The Beverage Wars Move to Coconuts. [Online] Available at: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203315804577207313086829188.html [Accessed 2 May 2012]. Read More