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