Discuss the different media campaigns that you are aware/engaged in. What are the strengths and weaknesses of this media campaign? In what ways would you have done it differently?
The media campaign I am highly aware of would be Coca-Cola Malaysia's latest campaign, 'Chup! Coca-Cola. Refresh lah together-gether'. As an already internationally established brand, Coca-Cola Malaysia’s main purpose of this campaign was to
further enhance their relationship with their young audience while increasing the sales of their beverage in the country.. They also worked to encourage youths to share a
can of Coca-Cola together with their peers (ABC
Mediaworks, 2013).
Strengths:
To interact with their target audience whose ages ranged from 13-28, the brand made changes to the design of the cans by localizing the packaging. They achieved this by incorporating the use of local slangs and hashtags to stay relevant to their targeted audience.
The outcome of that was a collection of seven
limited edition can designs hashtagged with a different word on each can: #macha, #lenglui,
#beb, #fuyoh, #bestgiler, #terrernya and #syoknya. This was a very good move by the brand as they were clear about who their target was. By defining their audience, Coca-Cola was able to craft their message specifically to that audience. Properties of messages play a significant role in influencing its persuasiveness. As such, the company localized the design so that they could be more relatable to Malaysians by choosing to memorialize pieces of language commonly used by local youths today over the usual illustrations of Malaysian monuments like the Petronas Twin Towers or the Tugu Negara.
Coca-Cola also encouraged consumers to take photos of themselves with the cans and post them up on social network platforms like Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, along with the hashtag #shareMYcokelah. By actively involving their audience in the campaign, it changed the influence, manner and effect of the way the audience processed the message sent out by Coke. This campaign therefore relied
heavily on the use of social media networks that are most widely used by the younger generation.
This served as a good way to spread the campaign and to make it viral among
Malaysians in a very short time. Based on a research by Latif, Md Din, Ismail, Othman and Suliman (2010),
younger Malaysians tend to spend more time online and are a generation who are
more tech savvy. 64% of users were aged between 13-29 years old, which included
the campaign’s target audience. Coca-Cola also used Facebook to convey their messages to the youth. Considering the fact that majority of Facebook users in Malaysia are students,
this is a very appropriate way to reach their target audience (Mustaffa, et.
al., 2011). 1 Malaysia for Youth (iM4U) engaged with their audience through
this method as well and they successfully garnered 40000 page likes (Sittamparam, 2013).
Another strength of this campaign was that Coca-Cola incorporated the scarcity technique of compliance. Individuals dislike feeling that they are unable to have something, thus, people desire the scarce object more. The specially designed cans of Coke were only available for purchase for as long as the duration of the campaign, making them limited edition collectible items. The more people posted pictures of the cans with the hashtags online, the more other people wanted to get their own and do the same. This also increased the want for consumers to own the full set of cans which indirectly led to a rise in sales.
Weaknesses:
As this campaign was so heavily dependant on social media, audiences in rural areas of the country were not able to participate in the campaign's various activities. In a research carried out on high school students in rural parts of Malaysia by Mohamed, Mohamad Judi, Nor & Yusof (2012), it was reported that ICT knowledge is low as the majority of students said they were less skilled with a computer. Less than 20% claimed to be skillful with social network sites. This could be due to a lack of exposure to proper facilities and therefore created a gap in the audience's perceptiveness and acceptance to the campaign as compared to those who have easy access to ICT facilities.
Recommendations:
To counter the problem of the gap left in rural areas of Malaysia, on-ground activities and roadshows should have been done at these areas where photos could have been taken on the spot and immediately uploaded to Coca-Cola's social media accounts by the on-ground team on behalf of the participants who were not able to do so for themselves.
Another method to
attract more people would be to allow personalization of the cans. The British Coca-Cola Company
had a campaign where popular names were printed on Coca-Cola cans (Coca-Cola
Great Britain, 2013). A campaign using the same idea was also done in Australia
(Marketing, 2012) and was a huge success. Instead of printing hashtags, popular
or common Malaysian names could be used.
References:
ABC
Mediaworks 2013, Coke Connects With Youth, Malaysia, viewed 23 October
2013,
.
Coca-Cola Great Britain 2013, Share a Coke FAQs,
viewed 23 October 2013,
Latif, A, Md Din, M, Ismail, R, Othman, M, & Suliman, A 2010, 'Understanding Malaysian Internet Addiction: A Comparative Study on Malaysia and Selected Countries', International Journal Of Interdisciplinary Social Sciences, vol. 5, no. 6, pp. 391-399, Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 24 October 2013.
Marketing
2012, ‘Share a Coke campaign post-analysis’, Marketing
Magazine, 22 June, viewed 24 October 2013,
.
Mohamed, H, Mohamad Judi, H, Nor, S, & Yusof,
Z 2012, 'Bridging Digital Divide: A Study on ICT Literacy among Students in
Malaysian Rural Areas', Australian Journal Of Basic & Applied Sciences,
vol. 6, no. 7, pp. 39-45, Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 23 October
2013.
Mustaffa, N, Ibrahim, F, Wan Mahmud, W, Ahmad, F, Chang Peng,
K, & Mahbob, M 2011, 'Diffusion of Innovations: The Adoption of Facebook
among Youth in Malaysia', Innovation Journal, 16, 3, pp. 1-15, Business Source
Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 23 October 2013.
