Coca Cola plans to increase

Through the campaign, Coca Cola plans to increase (and showcase) its involvement in community development programmes such as investing in environment protection, supporting the disabled and similar projects. A bird’s eye view and it could simply look like any other corporate social responsibility (CSR) activity taken up by the company. But a closer look inside – and some help from the company grapevine – reveals to us how this is a classic case of CSR being ultimately leveraged to become a profitability statement. But do such campaigns really work in the long run? To get the outside view on this, 4Ps B&M caught up with Superbrands, arguably the world’s most renowned brand valuation and ranking firm. Anmol Dhar, MD of Superbrands, shared with us, “Coca Cola certainly needs to improve its brand image in the society. Whether this sort of CSR initiative will help Coke improve its brand image, well, that’s what time will tell!” Time! But really, the reasons for this contemporary image makeover are not too difficult to come by. Though the biting pesticides controversy, along with ground water depletion or health concerns around its core brands, are behind Coca Cola now, continuously declining profitability is a fear that haunts the company perennially, what with the rate of growth of the soft drinks industry going down dangerously. The real problem for Coca Cola comes in as the traditional cola war, all over the world, seems gradually shifting to a new ground. Soft drink volumes have started witnessing a fall as a rising health-consciousness wave is hitting consumers belatedly. “Consumers have certainly become health conscious and are going to shun carbonated drinks and shift to more nutritious options,” prophesies FMCG analyst Harish Bijur to 4Ps B&M.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative