| Marketing |
| Written by Dennis D. Estopace / Reporter |
| Monday, 23 November 2009 18:43 |
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“We’re still experimenting with social media. We still prefer to use sampling, the classics. Traditional doesn’t mean boring,” company regional creative director Linda Kovarik said. Speaking at the 21st Philippine Advertising Congress in Subic Bay Free Port last week, Kovarik said that “it boils down to how you can evoke emotion for your brand” that’s important. “The idea is still the most important. Social media may not be the best way to explore the idea. You have to find the best way and it may not be the newest.” Kovarik explained that what’s important is evoking emotion and not portraying emotion. “Show, don’t tell. You can portray sadness but evoke happiness,” she said, citing an old McDonald’s advertisement on an Alzheimer-stricken elderly. Happiness, she said, is what will be emphasized in most Coca-Cola advertisements and targeting the family, especially up to December. “We’re focusing on the dinner table as the center of a family’s activity, with the mother as director,” Kovarik said, adding that such culture is very Asian. By the first quarter of next year, the company will come out with a new advertising campaign that she said would evoke “the feeling of fizz and tingling” with a Coke product. The campaign, Kovarik said, would contain “more teen-focused ads,” to be released in the 10 countries in the region. She added that there will be more of the “Happiness Factory” ads that “clicked” with the youth and children. However, Coca-Cola’s traipsing on social media may be a bit tentative in view of Asia Friendster head Ian Stewart’s data that 76 percent of young Asians belong to at least one online social network platform. Stewart, who spoke at a forum a day before Kovarik did, bared that in Vietnam, the average number of social-networking sites young Vietnamese belong to is eight, the highest among 12 countries. Among young Indians, it is two, while a young Filipino may belong to four social-network sites on the average. According to Stewart, social-networking sites are considered by teens as a social hangout place, to see and be seen, to check in and, of course, for Friendster. These views jive with those of Multiply executive chairman Claudio Pinkus, who also spoke at the same forum. Pinkus noted that the future of social networking includes business among the many networks riding on the platform. Likewise, he added that while this platform has a global reach, it may also be highly localized, including content and using many languages. Kovarik, nonetheless, said they are still monitoring this platform. |
WHILE more and more people are joining social-networking web sites, the Coca-Cola Co. is still sticking with the