Branding and Good PR: Coca-Cola Philippines

There are no words to articulate how badly the Philippines was destroyed by the recent typhoon Yolanda (internationally known as Typhoon Haiyan). Recorded as the strongest typhoon ever recorded in the world, surviving the typhoon is a feat in itself--but the more difficult part is recovering from the damage it has left the country with.

The world as we know it has shown its support for the Philippines by assisting us in this gravest moment for our nation--from individuals, NGOs, locally-owned companies, multinationals and countries everywhere. The help we have received, indeed, is something that amazes. The stories we see online are amazing--stories of little children giving their piggybank savings and even less-fortunate people donating whatever they can.

Not surprisingly, we see brands everywhere showing in their support for the Philippines as well. One notable brand I've seen online is Coca-Cola Philippines.

To those of you who may have not seen it yet, a story or article has been circulating online about Coca-Cola Philippines gigantic help for the victims of Yolanda: they have decided to spend their ad budget at this point in time to help the survivors.

WOW. JUST WOW.

I find this a brilliant move of Coca-Cola Philippines--a good initiative undertaken by both their Brand and Corporate Communications/PR. It's a fantastic move, really.

Think about what just happened: their Marketing/Brand gave up their ad spending in exchange for great PR!

See? It's a win-win decision. Why so? Well, here's stating the obvious:

• Rather than another quarter or so of heavily-branded ads on TV, Radio and Print, the brand was able to acquire good PR. As a brand person, I think PR is an important facet that marketers have to consider. It's not all about what you explicitly tell your consumers, it's also about managing what they think of your brand. In foresight, the end-goal of marketers is for consumers to LOVE their brands. And let's admit it, this sort of material reinforces and rekindles your love for Coca-Cola. 
• Newsworthy material such as this (admit it: brands donating a certain amount of money is very cliche right now) will naturally get great PR. I'd imagine this sort of material has a high possibility of being printed and released by media. Even more, it's viral-worthy in itself as consumers are SHARING it online. Look at this snapshot of one online article:

Article in Yahoo! Philippines about Coca-Cola's special way of helping Yolanda victims

• If you look closely, there are about 43,000 people who have recommended this article and 957 tweets. That is really a great response from consumers--considering that this was just published yesterday! It's only been ONE DAY and it was able to illicit fantastic response from consumers. 

I'LL SAY IT AGAIN: WOW. JUST WOW.

I think I just fell in love with Coca-Cola even more. 

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Source: http://ph.news.yahoo.com/why-you-won-t-be-seeing-coca-cola-ads-for-a-while-103232831.html

Target Market and Lapsed Users: Yakult Philippines

Recently, we've been seeing Yakult's TV commercial (TVC) on local TV networks. This TVC revolves around the digital trend #ThrowBackThursday or #TBT--and we see fit women in their mid to late 20s reminiscing about their childhood days while enjoying Yakult.

There are a few things which I would like to point out in this post:

Yakult's material is clearly trying to reach out to its now adult target market--those that used to drink Yakult as a kid. In fact, it's trying to attract its lapsed users. Personally, I am a lapsed user of Yakult and although this commercial aired for some time, it did not generate that warranted interest for me to return to the brand. And that's where I think Yakult fell short for this campaign. Obviously, it was intended to be a tactical campaign to drive sales from lapsed users. However, its communication failed to give me that compelling reason to become a user once again. Let's dissect the elements in their material:

• Fitness
• Facebook
• Hashtag ("TBT", "ThrowBackThursday")

True enough, these elements are all relevant to the target market--but not enough to compel. They did communicate how Yakult is good for digestion, but it ends just there. This reason-to-believe would work for non Yakult users, but what about lapsed users? In targeting lapsed users, marketers should be able to address the main reasons why users switched.

In this case, is it simply just a matter of "I forgot how important Yakult is, therefore, I should drink Yakult once again" as what the campaign communicates?--I doubt it. Possibly, there are other factors that have not been considered. Say, the growing importance of wheat grass drinks, tea drinks, supplements, yogurts, and more. In the strictest sense, Yakult barely has direct competitors at present. I don't have the data to back it up, but my best guess is that Yakult has lost relevance to the market as people have forgotten the importance of good digestion which can be acquired from the Lactobacilli in Yakult. And if that's the case, one way of attacking this is by consumer education (tactical, but that would be a costly campaign). Another way would be by a thematic campaign--however, thematic campaigns should be one that connects the brand with a succinct theme. And so far, I think Yakult has to be clear on what it means to its target market.

Any other thoughts, anyone? :)

(Apologies for the late post. This was saved in my drafts for some time and I only managed to publish it right now.)