Visual confusion content. The white coke cans looked too much like the diet coke (cola light) cans. Some conscious diet coke users opened the can and found out after the first sip that there was too much sugar in it. While they bought diet coke precisely to avoid sugar.
Confusion of taste. The contents of the polar bear cans tasted different. Coca cola swears that it has not changed the composition. But every food marketer knows that a different color perception can strongly influence the taste.
Confusion brand image . “It’s a shame to tarnish the brand like this.” This feedback comes from the real diehard fans of the brand. They need safety and security, guard the brand and want Coca Cola to remain classic.
The consequences
Coca Cola is now discontinuing the production of the white polar bear cans and is switching to red cans with cambodia phone number list polar bears . So far, it does not appear that there has been any major damage to the image of Coca Cola or the WWF. The campaign was too short and both brands were too strong.
Some blogs call American consumers stupid because they couldn't tell the difference between a can of Diet Coke and a white polar bear can. Consumers, including Americans, don't seem so much stupid to me as creatures of habit. You buy a can of Coke on a routine basis, without thinking or carefully observing. That's one of the reasons why a consumer brand should be as predictable as possible. You can't radically change one of the essential components, such as the red color of the can, without resistance from the consumer. It's all about emotion. Nobody is going to rationally read the fact sheet on the official website to see what exactly the difference is.
'Green marketing' must meet two conditions: you must contribute to the environment, but also to customer satisfaction. In the zeal to contribute to the field of “corporate responsibility”, Coca Cola forgot an iron law of marketing; the mainstream consumer rarely trades basic functionality of the product for support for a good cause. Look for example at the biodegradable chip bag from Frito Lay that made too much noise.
A strong brand like Coca Cola occupies a strong mental and emotional brain position in the minds and hearts of the consumer. Major changes in the essential elements of an iconic brand, which clash with this brain position, can count on a lot of resistance. The angry reactions of the American consumers could have been predicted in advance in my opinion. I am very curious whether there really was no marketer within Coca Cola, who clearly warned about this in advance. Or was everyone collectively blinded by this 'green' action? A case of ' green marketing myopia' ?