An Interesting Angle

Screen capture of "Cinema Challenge" advertisement

The last piece of marketing communication I noticed in the Coke-Zero campaign was in cinemas and online. The video that aired is available here and it shows a hidden camera in a movie theatre with lots of people drinking Coke - or so they think. A man appears on the movie screen and tells the viewers that he was the one who served them their Cokes and he'd made a switch. The people in the audience are then instructed to look under their Coke cup where they find they have actually been drinking Coke-Zero. This is an interesting angle that Coke-Zero has taken because they are technically trying to convince consumers to drink Coke-Zero and stop buying their mother brand, Coca-Cola Original. This could be a form of brand cannibalisation for Coke; where consumers that have usually bought regular Coke are now switching to Coke-Zero and therefore destroying the collection of customers buying Coca-Cola Original. In taking this risk, Coke must have done some sort of research to ensure that this would instead bring in new customers rather than just moving existing customers to the new brand extension. I think this was risky for Coke to do, but it is something different that I have personally never seen done before and therefore would be effective.

Screen capture of viewers finding out about Coke-Zero switch