When thinking of companies that create emotions of harmony, happiness, and togetherness among consumers one brand immediately comes to mind, Coca-Cola. As a company that actively promotes acceptance and love in all of its advertising efforts, Coca-Cola has been the most popular soft drink for generations. Due to its reputation, it came as a surprise when Coca-Cola’s holiday advertisement backfired and infuriated the people of Ukraine and Russia.
This New Year’s advertisement displayed a winter map in red and white, with the tagline “Celebrate winter holidays from Moscow to Vladivostok.” The issue was that the original map did not include Crimea. Crimea is a highly disputed territory that was occupied by Moscow rebels in early 2014 in a conflict that resulted in the deaths of 9,000 people. Russians were furious that the map was incomplete and took to social media to express their anger. In order to correct the issue, the ad was quickly removed and replaced with an apology and a new map including Crimea and other areas that had not been in the original version. Unfortunately, this caused a prompt uproar from Ukrainians who were furious with Coca-Cola for including an area “illegally occupied by Russians.” There now has been a call for Ukrainians to boycott the company. In response, Coca-Cola headquarters issued a statement saying, “We, as a company, do not take political positions unrelated to our business, and we apologize for the post, which we have removed," (
Wall Street Journal).
Rather than “opening happiness,” this advertisement opened up wounds between countries and possibly damaged the brand reputation in two markets. Coca-Cola claims that the ad was created by an independent agency without the company’s knowledge or approval, which brings into question how could this have been prevented? I wonder if Coca-Cola trusted this advertising agency enough to do proper research into the politics of the area and provided the agency with enough freedom to publish a revised ad without approval from the company. Shouldn’t Coca-Cola be aware of the external environment in which they sell its products? This issue could have been avoided if the company had focused more on possible problems of the advertisement or had done concept testing. It will be interesting to see how this marketing backfire will affect sales in both Russia and Ukraine. Whether the fault is in the hands of Coca-Cola for giving the agency too much freedom and trust or the agency for being uninformed and jumping to quick solutions, Coca-Cola must rely on public relations efforts to restore its relationship with consumers and prevent the brand from further damage.
This is an interesting dilemma. I think Coke is responsible for the mishap because they gave direction to the agency. I cannot imagine the image was posted without their consent or some sort of direction. Even if it was, the Coke brand is associated with the image so they must take responsibility in order to solve the problem. Most people are unaware of how much brands rely on agencies and therefore will associate Coke with the crisis.
ReplyDeleteI think it was irresponsible to try to deflect blame. It only makes it more difficult to solve the problem. The initial statement Coke made was perfectly concise and sensitive. I think what most brands do not realize when things like this happen is that they cannot be undone. Deflecting blame is something people naturally do when confronted for a mistake. When you're one of the biggest brands in the world, you have to accept the mistake and move on to try to gain consumer trust back. I think you're right in your last statement that, "Coca-Cola must rely on public relations efforts to restore its relationship with consumers and prevent the brand from further damage" is an accurate summary of the situation moving forward.
Very tough situation for Coca-Cola! I also think it is quite hard to believe that such a big company as Coca-Cola would give such freedom to Ad Agencies they work with. You would think that a reputable company such as Coke would have a tight guard on what gets put into the world with their name stamped on it. Things like this would have never happened if they had an advertising department in every country that would review and pre-test each and every advertisement created by agencies. They would still not have all of the work you have got to put into creating a campaign, but they would still be completely on top of their advertisements and would prevent situations such as this one!
ReplyDeleteWhen talking about a big company/brand that is sold and advertised in many different countries/cultures/political views you have got to have a strong team that overlooks everything to make sure things are politically correct for the culture it is going to be shown in.
It is "almost" the same thing as if McDonalds advertised pulled pork sandwich in every country disconsidering the fact that Middle Eastern countries do not eat pork. Big companies rule of thumb: BE ON TOP OF YOUR ADS! ;) always!
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