Is this Coke’s most insidious ad campaign yet ?

Coke’s latest ad campaign shows us a bottle of their product next to a simple enough question: “… and what do you want to eat”.  Their product may be the sugar-water of choice in cinemas, at sports events and on the go.  But this campaign seems to want to put it on our dinner tables too. 

Coke’s “red brand” ad budget in Europe reportedly exceeds £100m.  But the company is a master of segmentation.  With a limited product portfolio it has to be.  So, not content with the familiar battle for the youth market, e.g. the 2003 ‘Coke…Real’ campaign and the UK ‘coke-zone’, it now seems to be looking at a very specific market: hungry people.  

Coke’s marketing has always been notable – and often controversial.  The company was recently forced to correct misleading statements in an Australian ‘myth-busting’ campaign that claimed its products did not contribute to tooth decay or obesity.    The company has often been credited for the ‘invention’ of Santa Claus and lauded for its ‘It’s the real thing’ campaigns in the 1970s.  Today, it uses innovative approaches such as Bluetooth-driven mobile marketing in London’s Piccadilly Circus, which has been praised because of its opt-in approach (essentially, it invites people to download content and doesn’t just spam their devices if they happen to walk beneath the famous billboard).

But youth has recently been a major target.  The organisation of the cokezone.co.uk website tells you all you need to know: the menu options across the top of the screen include (from left to right): Sport, Music, Entertainment, Games and Fashion.

Not that this hasn’t paid off.  There has been a steady growth of per capita consumption of Coke products across Europe, with only Germany notable for a decline over the last ten years.  In the UK, per capita consumption in 2008 stood at 196 units (equivalent to 8fl 0z). That’s 46 litres per annum.

Coke, therefore, is ubiquitous and near-omnipresent.  Its marketing assails us from public spaces via billboards; in our homes, through TV, press and online; in our workplace through vending operations and it now even follows us when we’re out and about, via Bluetooth.

But now Coke seems to be shifting its marketing approach.  It’s worldwide ‘Open Happiness’ campaign acknowledges the impact of global recession and targets “consumers who are financially and emotionally pressured by the recession” with a message of retreating to the simple pleasures in life.  Meanwhile, Coca-Cola and Pepsico are re-igniting the “cola wars” by aggressively competing for market share against a backdrop of declining sales in the US.  The “and what do you want to eat” campaign can be seen very much as a part of this approach.  It attempts to position Coke as the natural choice beverage (the question is: what do you want to eat.  You already know what you want to drink) while targeting an under-represented segment: diners.

So, perhaps the last bastion of the Coke-free world is the dinner table ?  But the company is clearly determined to wipe out whatever resistance is left. The “and what do you want to eat” billboard campaign simply gives us the familiar waisted bottle,  right aligned and half in view, against a Coke-red backdrop and complemented with the simple question about what solids you fancy to soak up your soda.

Note that this is the ‘classic’ coke bottle in glass, with all its upmarket retro associations, and NOT the ubiquitous 2-litre PET ‘tank’ that you’re more likely to find gracing the dinner table chez Chav.  The attempt here is to gentrify the brand’s association with food and conquer the last redoubt of middle-class ‘anti-consumerism’.  But that’s ok… because with global financial meltdown and ‘Open Happiness’, Coke can be your friend in a time of crisis.

*burp*.