Coca Cola: King of Crowdsourcing
Coca Cola: King of Crowdsourcing
Back
in 1886, the year Coca-Cola began, the
distinctive tasting soft drink that could be sold only at soda fountains was
serving about 9 glasses a day. Nowadays, this company is serving their copious flavors of beverages as many as 1.9 billion times a day, globally! What
started as a simple idea of an Atlanta pharmacist, Dr. John S. Pemberton, unknowingly became an internationally known and recognized brand. The brand has remained
true to these humble beginnings by keeping the original name of the product and
the trademarked, distinct script that were originally both designed by Dr.
Pemberton’s partner and bookkeeper, Frank M. Robinson.
Although
the company is quite long lasting, they have been able to do so by keeping up
with the times. They interact with the groundswell, embrace their consumers,
and my personal favorite; put out great super bowl commercials.
Crowdsourcing strategies involve inducing massive amounts of people, usually through social media or the internet, to solve a task. Based on how and what people respond with, you can change, innovate and create new products while proving that you are a responsive company. This collection method is usually free or very low-cost to the company, making it a desirable way to receive potentially profitable suggestions.
Crowd sourcing is
one of Coca-Cola's strong suits. For example, the advertisement above was suggested by a customer who put an idea for the plot of a Valentine's themed commercial into a video idea contest hosted by the soda company. Similarly, there have been other interactive commercials produced by Coca Cola, such as the "Choose the Ending" Super Bowl commercial which had fans tweeting and voting online for the dramatic conclusion they wanted to see at the end of the game.
In Chapter 9, Li and Bernoff suggest
that "crowdsourcing by itself is not the same as embracing the customers.
Crowdsource an ad campaign, and you might save a few bucks on ad
production - but you won't have to do the hard work of changing the way
you interact with customers." (190)
The groundswell
enables innovation to move more rapidly. Customers want to be heard so as soon
as that desire for their opinion is shown, it won't take them long to respond
with their thoughts. Using platforms like Twitter, you can instantly ask
millions of your consumers what they think about the packaging, where they
think their products should be sold, or what should be the theme of the next
commercials! Those are decisions that are being made by the followers and
saving the company time, almost as if you were replacing an exchange of letters
with a face to face conversation!
Speaking of
Twitter, Coca-Cola has a great following. With 3.36 million
people seeing their frequent postings, their company is truly benefiting. Li
and Bernoff remind us in Chapter 10 that Twitter
users have an outsized level of influence, so even if a quarter of their
followers shared the companies hashtags or retweeted their posts, the Coca-Cola
brand stretches across a vast portion of the groundswell. This,
along with other important elements such as hashtags, searches, mentions, and
retweets, has helped CocaCola become successful within the groundswell, where
they energize by finding people who like their product and amplify their voices
on their own page.
Chapter 11 talks a little bit
about Dell's PR disasters and how they were able to use the groundswell to
transform their company, post disaster. Coca-Cola had a similar
situation. Back in 2015, the New York Times suggested that Coca Cola was backing a new “science-based” solution to the obesity
crisis: To maintain a healthy weight, get more exercise and worry less about
cutting calories. Critics of the sugary beverage company believed
that this was a way of deflecting the role that the companies soft drinks had
played in the spread of obesity and Type 2 diabetes in America.
Luckily, they had the right man on
the job. Coca-Cola CEO Muhtar Kent took on the accusations head
on, publicly apologizing and promising the public that the
company would be more transparent and continue its efforts to provide
healthier options. They owned up to the issue, they put the head of the company
right out front, and they out sized the issue, proving in
all these ways that they cared. Thanks to the groundswell, this apologetic
message was spread to all in a matter of moments. Similar to the Dell example
from the book, this case of Coca Cola proves that 'authenticity is
crucial' and that 'executive push and cover makes a difference.' You have to take crisis management step by
step, so dealing with all parts of the issue, one at a time, was a perfect
plan to re achieve success.
The focus on crowdsourcing makes me wonder about how good the Coca-Cola company is at listening to their own employees opinions before those of the consumer masses. In Chapter 12, Li and Bernoff remind us that "the bigger a company is, the more of a problem internal communication becomes." They spend so much time listening to others and outsourcing, but the people who know the company best also have a good chance at being able to make positive and productive changes with their valuable suggestions! Listening to the internal groundswell helps to energize by amplifying the workers voices, supporting the idea of promoting within. Its important to listen to employees, talk with them and have open communication about changes that are going to occur or they are hoping will occur.
Do you think that Coke does a good job of following Li and Bernoff's suggestions on how to properly activate and use the groundswell? Let me know in the comments below! :)
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