Metrics

There are a few key metrics that can be used to evaluate the success of Diet Coke’s collaboration with the Heart Truth campaign. The most obvious metric that will be used is tracking sales. If sales of Diet Coke increase, Coca-Cola will know they have been successful in entering the healthy sports drink beverage sector. The company will also need to track sales of Powerade, to ensure they haven’t dropped as it is a Coca-Cola brand and they want to ensure its success. Finally, they will need to track the beverage sales of Gatorade, to see if there is a dip and they have successfully taken on the category leader.

Another key metric that Coca-Cola will use to evaluate their success of their new healthy image positioning through partnership with the Heart Truth campaign is through surveys to assess consumers’ attitudes towards Diet Coke. Survey questions will assess consumers’ feelings about the image enhancing qualities of Diet Coke. Furthermore, it will be beneficial to include metrics to establish if consumers’ perception of Diet Coke has changed since their repositioning and partnership with the Heart Truth campaign.

It would also be beneficial to establish of awareness of the Heart Truth campaign and its key messages have increased. This could be measured through surveys to assess knowledge, tracking the number of heart screenings that have been done, and through tracking visits to the Heart Truth website. Additionally, long term analysis could demonstrate whether early detection of heart disease has increased in women, or if there has been an overall decrease in the number of female deaths from heart disease.

Execution

Communications plan:
Communication Objective: Attitudinal change. Establish Diet Coke as a healthy beverage whose cool image is consistent with their health benefits
Media & Execution: partner with the Heart Truth campaign and launch an aggressive marketing campaign including:
- National commercial campaign
- Advertisements on Diet Coke packaging
- Sponsorship of a "red dress" fashion show
- Dedicate portion of Diet Coke website to heart health tips

Product: Diet Coke, the no calorie, sweetened version of Coca Cola classic. Diet Coke is available in six flavors: regular, caffeine free, coke, cherry, lime, and sweetened with splenda. The product is available in a variety of packages and sizes, and is sold all over the world. Diet Coke aims to position itself as a healthy beverage and compete against Gatorade and Powerade. The product relies on it's unique taste and "cool" image to attract customers. Diet Coke has an "experinece" product attribute, and it can be evaluated only after consumption, although it is hoped that there will be some "search" aspects to the product with its image based emphasis.

Collaborators:
- channel length is indirect, there are intermediaries in the process (manufacturer --> wholesaler --> retailer --> consumer)
- channel breadth is mainstream distribution meaning the number of outlets where the product is sold is as high as possible to minimize travel/search costs for consumer
- channel depth is less integrated, because Coca Cola does not control all aspects of the channel

STP

Key Competitors: Gatorade, Powerade

Main Variable: health benefit (or just that beverage is not bad for you)

Dynamic Variable: image/cool factor
- Cool factor today encompasses many things, including a health benefit. Diet Coke's existing image and reputation gives them an edge in the health drink category

Target Audience: health (calorie) conscious women between the ages of 20 and 60

5 Box Positioning Statement:
Current belief: Gatorade is the best tasting and coolest health beverage
Currently do: When I want a cool healthy beverage, I drink Gatorade
Consumer Proposition: Diet Coke is a cool, healthy, iconic beverage
Desired belief: Diet Coke is a cool and healthy beverage
Desired do: When I want a healthy and cool beverage I drink Diet Coke, not Gatorade

Path to Purchase: brand awareness (advertisements) -->product discovery (grocery store, restaurant, etc) --> consideration of beverage --> product consumption

Strategic Quadrant

The category Coca Cola is trying to enter is the health drink category. Although Powerade, which is in this category, is a Coca Cola product, they are attempting to leverage their brand equity and garner more soda sales by pushing Diet Coke into direct competition with this and other sports drinks. The category leader is Gatorade. Drinks in this category are supposedly more nutritious for you then high calorie drinks (although some beverages in this category do have a high calorie count). Many drinks have electrolytes and other health benefits.

The customer is anyone who drinks Diet Coke at least one time a month. About 51% of Diet Coke drinkers are female.
- Aim for high purchase frequency, high purchase quantity, and brand loyalty (ie won't drink Diet Pepsi over Diet Coke)

The marketing objective is acquisition. Soda sales are down, and Coca Cola wants to acquire new customers by pushing their soda into the healthy beverage category. Their calorie free beverage and partnership with the Heart Truth campaign will help them reach this goal and convince customers to purchase Diet Coke instead of their competitor's drinks.

The source of volume is steal share from Gatorade and other health drinks. Gatorade is the category leader, and Diet Coke would like to inspire customers to purchase their beverage instead.

4 B's:
Bodies: female, health conscious beverage consumers
Beliefs:
(before) Diet Coke is a soda, it is not healthy. I drink Gatorade when I want a healthy beverage.
(after) Diet Coke is a healthy beverage that is more refreshing than Gatorade
Behaviors: drink Diet Coke (before purchase Gatorade, now purchase Diet Coke)
Bucks: TBD

Business Objective

I forgot to post this before class, but here is my business objective so far:

I am going to be analyzing Diet Coke's sponsorship of the Heart Truth campaign, specifically focusing on how Diet Coke is trying to position themselves in the "health drink" category. The idea is that Coca Cola wants an edge in the healthy drink category, compared to Gatorade, Powerade, and other similar beverages. Soda sales in general (fell by 2.1% in 2009) and Coca Cola is aiming to acquire new customers by stealing share from Gatorade, the category leader. In this case, the dynamic variable Diet Coke is after is image based, and they are positioning themselves based on a cool and healthy image.

The Fundamental Entity is Diet Coke.
- Coca Cola is the world's largest beverage company, with over 500 brands of beverage in their family
- Diet Coke represents a distinct brand within this corporation
- Diet Coke is a calorie free, good tasting, and sweet alternative to Coca Cola Classic.
- Diet Coke recently claimed the number two spot in terms of soda popularity, while Coca Cola Classic maintains the #1 position. Diet Coke does not fare as well in the healthy beverage category

The Core Competence is Diet Coke's calorie free, refreshing taste. The flavor is distinct from other beverages in the health drink category, which tend to be fruit flavored. Diet Coke also has the image of being a cool drink. Coca Cola is a leader in the beverage industry, and their brand equity can also be considered a core competence.

The Goal for Coca Cola is to increase sales and garner CSR by partnering with a platform that targets women, a main Diet Coke drinker demographic

What is the Heart Truth?

For those who don't know, here's a little background info about the Heart Truth campaign:

The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute works to promote knowledge about diseases of the heart, lung, and blood. They are also the sponsors of the Heart Truth campaign, which aims to promote heart health in women. Heart disease is the number one killer of women, and so the Heart Truth campaign’s platform aims to resonate with this audience, specifically women aged 40-60 and women of color, who are the most at risk demographics for heart disease. For example, the centerpiece of the Heart Truth campaign is the “Red Dress,” which has been associated with campaign since 2002.

The Heart Truth campaign sponsors many events that are designed to raise awareness for the disease. In February 2010, Heart Truth sponsored a fashion show at during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in New York City. Celebrities all walked the runway wearing designer red dresses to promote heart health. The campaign also sponsors “National Wear Red Day” which encourages women to wear red on the first day of February each year.The Heart Truth Road show encourages heart screenings and promotes disease awareness as it travels around America. There is also a traveling collection of red dresses that First Ladies of the United States have previously worn. Finally, the Heart Truth Campaign has Heidi Klum as their brand ambassador. Partnering with Diet Coke is yet another venue the Heart Truth Campaign can use to reach women.



http://www.dietcoke.com/about-diet-coke/our-partners.jsp, http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/educational/hearttruth/about/index.htm

Business Objective Brainstorm

I have been working on establishing the business objective for my project. I think it is going to be much easier for me to extract the FE/core competence/goal from Coca Cola than it is from the Heart Truth campaign, mainly just because I have never analyzed a nonprofit before. I don't anticipate this being too challenging, just that it will be different from other marketing case studies I've read.

One question I have is whether I should approach the business objective from the Coca Cola organization as a whole, or whether it would be a stronger approach to focus specifically on Diet Coke, as this is the brand working with Heart Truth? I think I am leaning towards just focusing on Diet Coke (while still including some coca cola information) as I feel their core competence and FE probably correspond more with the Heart Truth campaign. I'm not sure yet though, just feeling around with this one.

Basically my game plan for this project is to compare Coca Cola with the Heart Truth campaign and determine whether it is a good fit using the big picture framework. It's obviously still in the very early stages, but I think I have a good start so far...

Brainstorm for final project

After Monday's class I began to brainstorm ideas about what I could possibly use for my final case analysis. With no relationship with any nonprofit organization, at first I was stumped. But then I began to approach the question using the big picture analysis, and decided to take the route of using this framework to analyze an existing example of CSR. I remembered this article that ran in the NYT a few weeks ago, and I had my answer.

Why Coca Cola is sponsoring a heart health campaign when drinking soda, even of the diet variety, can lead to obesity is beyond me. We all know obesity is key factor in heart disease, and therefore this partnership is a confusing one. Sure, Coca-Cola can garner lots of press and CSR, but is it worth it when they are presenting such a conflicting message? The campaign features television commercials, Heidi Klum as their "heart health" ambassador, a variety of fashion events from the "red dress program" including a fashion show high profile models all wearing red, as well as other events.

I'm sure in Coca-Cola's mind the partnership makes perfect sense. Heart disease is the leading killer of women, and lots of women drink diet coke. Add in Coca-Cola's large platform and marketing finesse, and it seems like a no brainer as a way to get the word out about heart health. In reality, this partnership presents a very conflicting message which detracts from the campaign's meaning.

Throughout my analysis I plan on detailing exactly why this partnership is a mismatched one, and offering suggestions for either a more appropriate sponsor for the heart health campaign, or another organization Coca-Cola could partner with for some CSR.