Can you still buy coke life

ALEX Response

How did the Coca-Cola Company try to bridge the gap between people’s real selves and their ideal selves with Coke Life?

Someones real self could also be descried as their self concept. This is how an individual sees themself. This concept is also how we think others see us. The ideal self is the person we would like to be. This ideal self could be anything from looks to mindset. This is the one of the areas Coke life tried to market. This product was an improved coke for the healthy conscience or for those who wanted to be healthy. Being only sweetened with natural additives, like Stevia, it was marketed to be a natural and healthy soft drink alternative but still keep the taste of coke. Someone who wanted to be fit and healthy could use this product as a stepping stone to a healthy real self.

Coke Life was did not sell well and was discontinued in 2017. What went wrong? Can older companies reinvent themselves with newer products like Coke Life? Name a company that succeeded by doing so and one that did not.

Coke Life was an attempt by Coca-Cola to introduce a healthier alternative to traditional coke and other soft drinks. The target consumer was individuals who drank little amounts of soft drinks or none at all. By presenting them with a healthier version of their product they hoped to reinvent themselves. Coke Life was a hard product to push from a well established company like Coke who is known for sweet soft drinks. This product did not go over well for a few reason reasons. Coke is a household name and brand. They are classically red cans that are easily to identify. Green was a good idea to connect to the Earth and health but it took away the stand out visual of Coke. Additionally, Coke already had popular “healthier” versions of their product, Diet Coke and Coke Zero. These products already had no sugar or were sweetened without sugar.

It is possible for a company to reinvent themselves but it is difficult when the product is well known/like. One successful example of this reinventing is Old Spice. In the early 2000s Old Spice was a product for the older generation. It was a musty smell not intended for youth. After its purchase by P & G the product was re branded and marketed towards youth. This new strategy paid off and Old Spice claimed 20% of the market by 2004. (Marketing Gunslingers)

The 2012 Olympic logo is an example of reinventing gone wrong. The London 2012 logo looked like an early 90's Nickelodeon add. In an attempt to present a modern look the 2012 portion of the logo is almost unreadable. With a logo that comes around once every four years it hard to please everyone but 2012 was a rough year for the Olympics marketing.

Tanner, J. & Raymond, M. A. (2019). Principles of Marketing. Boston, MA: FlatWorld

Marketing Gunslingers. (2016, September 15). How Old Spice Rebranded and Saved Their Business. Retrieved from http://www.marketinggunslingers.com/blog/old-spice/

Guadalupe Response

1. How did the Coca-Cola Company try to bridge the gap between people’s real selves and their ideal selves with Coke Life?

Coca Cola tried to bridge that gap by trying to make the public see that this product was healthier or seemed healthier alternative to the regular Coca-Cola. Everyone wants to be healthier and not feel terrible about what they just consumed. Customers have the things they like and dislike about themselves and Coca Cola was trying to target that specific group of people who feel guilty after consuming an unhealthy drink. They tried to basically say that by drinking the coke life they would not have to feel guilty about not working towards their ideal selves which in most cases it is their healthier selves. This was supposed to make people feel better than when drinking regular cokes that contain a lot of calories. Which is understandable, when anyone drinks or eats something that is unhealthy you can feel guilty about it afterwards.

1. Coke Life was did not sell well and was discontinued in 2017. What went wrong? Can older companies reinvent themselves with newer products like Coke Life? Name a company that succeeded by doing so and one that did not.

I believe that Coca Cola has been around for so long that its tough to try to reinvent themselves, but I believe it is not impossible. They have a marketing strategy that centers around their product being good and refreshing. Not one that is healthy and most people tend to not link refreshing and those other things they were marketing with living a healthy lifestyle. By using a healthier sweetener alternative it changes the taste of the drink as well. Cola-Cola tastes amazing and if you can't reinvent a healthy alternative that tastes the same, it will not sell. There are companies who reinvented themselves and one of them is Apple. Their greatest reinvention is when Apple turned its attention away from computers to hand held devices. Apples knew exactly how to set their products apart from its competitors. They got their customers to love their products and keep coming back for more. As the years go by Apple is still at the top and keep improving their products even more.

Directions

View the video, “It’s Mouth to Stomach” (Links to an external site.) and provide a few brief comments with respect to its relevancy to this unit’s marketing concepts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0tcUsH1PO8&feature=youtu.be

Describe the personal and psychological factors that may influence what consumers buy and when they buy it.