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.