Trends vs UGC - Cola wars style

Brands are always striving to stay relevant to their audience by capitalizing on the latest trend or theme. They encourage people to connect with them and generate content which is the best way of gaining brand ambassadors or UGC is a good way of understanding how people perceive their brand.

Looking at the Cola wars, both Pepsi and Coca Cola have been socially active and are quite advanced on their engagement techniques. Recently two videos were released, both engaging audiences via different methods.

Pepsi decided to be relevant by incorporating the Harlem Shake with their brand. The latest dance craze is a great way of engaging with youth, and a fantastic way of pushing the brand on top for awhile. Not too different from when a lot of brands decided to use Psy's Gangnam style for their own advertising. Its catchy and captivating but definitely not a long term strategy.

Coca Cola has been working on its Open Happiness campaign for a while now, and always thinking of new and innovative ways of sharing the happiness. Their latest venture was a crowd sourced video competition for 2012 MOFILM Cannes Lions, where the winning video was by Hugh Mitton. A touching video about how Coca Cola can bring happiness to people, and really captures what the brand is all about. The best thing about it is that is shows how fans perceive the brand, and it's great when its exactly what they have been trying to promote.

So which one is better? Trend hopping vs UGC 

Social Metrics - Quality vs Quantity in the Cola Wars

The effectiveness of social conversation usually revolves one key topic Quality vs. Quantity of followers and which is more important to measure social success.
There are many arguments for and against both, but this can be illustrated using a classic example of the Coke wars.
Coca Cola and Pepsi have been battling it out since time immemorial , and now with the advent of digital this has just moved to a different sphere, the social world.
Crisp Social put together a nifty infograph on the 'Epic Battle of the Bubbles', where it compared the performance of both brands in key areas (winners in bold):

• Total Fans - Coca Cola 51 million vs Pepsi 8 million
• Engagement Days - Coca Cola 51 days vs Pepsi 73 days
• Engaged more than once - Coca Cola 25% vs Pepsi 48%
• Engaged with Page - Coca Cola 0.8% vs Pepsi 5.3%
• Mobile Engagement - Coca Cola 35% vs Pepsi 52%

So from an overall perspective Pepsi is the clear winner, with having a more active and socially engaged fan base even with a much smaller fan count, so therefore it is quality which matters.

However while it's all fun to look at percentages, it is the actual numbers which make a difference so here is my take on it:

• Total Fans - Coca Cola 51 million vs Pepsi 8 million
• Engagement Days - Coca Cola 51 days vs Pepsi 73 days
• Engaged more than once - Coca Cola 12.75m (25%) vs Pepsi 3.84m (48%)
• Engaged with Page - Coca Cola 4m (0.8% ) vs Pepsi (4.24m) 5.3%
• Mobile Engagement - Coca Cola 17.85m (35%)  vs Pepsi (4.16m) 52m

By looking at the actual numbers, it levels the playing field where Coca-Cola scored better than Pepsi on fans who engaged more than once and who are more digitally savvy. So therefore it is quantity which also matters.

It is next to impossible to say which metric is better, as they both work together. A large of quantity of followers is essential but as long as they are of high quality. This will certain affect the overall quality of engagement with the brand.

Pepsi vs. Coca Cola ... the battle rages on

What better way to get consumers to try your product than the classic taste test?

Of course I never expected that this would be take place between age old rivals Pepsi & Coca Cola. In the day of multi-million dollar advertising, and superbowl commercials, it is still humbling to see that the most effective way of converting people is through the modest yet effective product sampling.

In fact this method has been so productive in 1976 that it will be resurrected this year to reach out to more than  1.5 million Canadian consumers with the Pepsi Ultimate Taste Challenge (ref: The Pepsi Taste Challenge)

I wonder what will Coca Cola will have to say to that?

Most Effective Branding ads

I have been collecting a couple of advertisements which I find to truly capture a brand's essence and some of these are just amazing...
I'll start with the best one first:

1) Pepsi
I always thought as a rule you could not depict your competitor in your advertising. But I guess rules are meant to be bent, as Pepsi does so in this amazing ad. It not only mocks Coca-Cola directly, but uses every icon connected with the company such as Santa and the Polar Bear and turns it against them. What can Coca-Cola do when their own symbols shun them for their competitor?

2) Lenovo
I think this is one of the most amazing displays of product effectiveness I have seen, but it does leave you wondering if it's genuine....What better way to show that the laptop can boot up in 30 sec than by throwing it off a plane and having it boot up to metaphorically speaking "save itself".... so simple and effective!

3) Ireland Road Safety Authority
A bunch of guys having fun while going out for a drive...what's wrong with this scenario? they are all holding guns, definitely not normal but it's what keeps you watching to know what happens next. The end is worth watching, and has the most impact. it definitely gets to the point.

4) Nike
Shoe Evolution...Nike through the ages, simply put shows the evolution of the brand, its shoes and how it has been the one true companion of the "runner" for 40 years, by focusing only on the shoes, great product focus.

5) KFC
A feel good ad by the company .... and it actually does make you go awww, but not sure how much it contributes to the brand. The ad is a tactic being used to change people's perceptions about it's negative image by showing that it brings people together, and leads to joy and happiness, rather than obesity no matter how long  you may be consuming it for.

6) LÓreal 
I am a bit undecided on this one.... Hugh Laurie is the new face of Lóreal's men line and this ad shows him at his cynical comedic best. Sure he's a great role model for guys but is he a good model for a skin care line? hmm sometimes irony is just more effective.

Packaging Positioning: What does it represent?

Last time I spoke about appearances and it seems I will be re-visiting the topic now.

Retro Tide

P&G are taking a 'gamble' (no pun intended) to re-vitalize their brand by going back in time and bringing out the good ol' packaging. A few of their flagship brands, like Tide, will be available in their packaging from the '70s and to make it complete it will be complimented by retro advertising, to make a holistic campaign. Now generally I'm a big fan of vintage and going retro, I love the look, and the style and it definitely stands out from the modernistic style of most. But you have the question its purpose... P&G argues that its not a short term sale boost but what they hope will be an emotional connection to the purchaser by causing them to relive memories from their childhood. Fair enough..but what about Generation Y who are currently an increasing demographic in terms of purchasing power..well P&G goes on to justify that it will help remind consumers of the simpler times, when everything was basic, functional, and did its job...so what if people don't really remember the 70's? I feel is more of a tactic by them to help them remember the time when they were the market leaders, and they hope that maybe people will remember this too and go back to buying their products over their competitors. well here's hoping...

Meanwhile the Cola wars are on a new turf... the "green wars"... which company can be the most green. Both companies are battling it out to see who can be first to mass produce 100% recycled packaging. Pepsi are taking it one step further by producing recyclable cups as well in order to meet demands by increasingly educated and environmentally conscious consumers. What I am curious about is this being done to look good with the people, to increase sales, to beat Coca Cola or are they genuinely concerned about the environment?
It's not easy to produce recycled products as it also uses heaps of water and electricity so in reality its a trade-off between plastic or water etc...also will this affect the price of Pepsi? Many other companies use a strategy where they sell products either standard or environmentally friendly (at a higher premium) in order to segment the market. In other words people will pay according to values and income, but this is quite questionable, how environmentally friendly are these companies then in reality?? So therefore will Pepsi charge a premium for its products? there is a market to sustain it, but what effect will it have in the wars, and can they be then really called an environmentally friendly company? Check out the infomercial below to learn more about Pepsi's green cups.

Copycat Branding

Pepsi has been in the news for its latest part in the cola wars, the Pay-it-Forward vending machine. The concept and technology behind it is quite novel and could possibly be the first in a long line of socially networked and interactive vending machines. The way it works is simple, you can choose a beverage, put in the contact details of a friend and they are notified of a drink redeemable at a vending machine of their convenience. It's about spreading the love and getting real people to act voluntarily as brand ambassadors..plus who would want to pass up on a free drink?? This campaign would involve a large expense on behalf of Pepsi, but overall is reminiscent of Coca-Cola's happiness campaign and their Happiness machines whose main aim is to encourage social interaction and bonding over the drink. This has been a long running aspect of their campaign and the happiness machine is a logical extension of it, but it would be interesting to watch how Pepsi develops their campaign further and the success rate of the machines, and how will Coca-Cola retaliate?

Pushing the boundaries of imitation is the new commercial of Edge shaving gel, and its eerie likeness to the Old Spice Isiah Mustafa campaign. It's hard to find a good video of it and this is the best i could do.

But it's one thing to seek inspiration and another to blatantly copy...what does a brand achieve out of that? The goals, ideology and style are completely different, even if the product may be similar the budget would have been better spent on developing the brand further and in creating a unique identity..enough said.

Lately it seems to me, most car brands have been adopting the word 'innovation' into their advertising, with Citroen - "celebrating innovation" following closely behind, Nissan's - "Innovation for all". If all brands are innovative..isn't that just the norm then?