Module 5-billet 1 : Social Media, social responsability and social business

Last April, Coca-Cola announced its new social mission : the company will invest  to fight obesity worldwide. This announcement was supported by a multiplatform advertising campaign, prepared in Quebec by Publicis. The campaign puts forward the fact that every calorie counts regardless of its source. Coca-Cola adopts a responsible attitude toward weight management by putting in the front of its products the number of calories they contain. 

 Coca-Cola in brief

 
Coca-Cola's social media strategy is simple but effective and turns around two themes : moments of happiness and their longtime support to the WWF Save the polar bear campaign.This approach makes it easy to produce content for their follower and fun to share :

As of today, Coca-Cola social media strategy is a success. Why didn't they include their new obesity campaign in their social communication yet? I think this ABC's report is a good beginning. 

A brief search on YouTube using the words Coca-cola and Obesity give another answer with 31 800 results. With 686 002 views, Coca-Cola's Coming together publicity and other Coca-Cola videos are first on the list. But the videos added by YouTube members are far more numerous. And all of them are contesting Coca-Cola's new positioning.

Coca-Cola chose its social target to answer to governmental and social pressures. The world is changing. Through social media, the public is vividly reacting to corporate decisions.  And now, the public is asking, from a cynical point of view: is it right for a corporation whose products are main contributors to the obesity problem to use that problem to sell more products? The answer is far more complicated than the question and I'll try to add a few ideas in my next entry.