Commentary
Coca-Cola Tries Again To Position Itself As Health Food
- by J. Max Robins , Featured Columnist, May 1, 2015
I'd hoped we'd seen the worst of it when it was recently revealed that the beverage giant had a passel of nutritionist bloggers on the pad, claiming mini-cans of Coke were part of a heart-smart diet.
I imagine when a big brand gets away with such a sleazy gambit, the temptation to keep spinning even more “we're so good for you” claptrap proves as hard to resist as an ice-cold Coke on a hot day.
Coca-Cola marketing brainiacs appear to believe that if a lie gets repeated enough times, people will begin think it's the truth. Witness the latest Coke-driven content marketing ploy. Dubbed the Fit Family Challenge, it's a multiplatform effort to push the Stevia-sweetened, low-calorie Coca-Cola Life product (the one with the bottle with the green label) and convince customers that it's good for them.
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The primary target market is North Carolina, and the Challenge — a partnership between Coca-Cola, CVS and Morris Media Network's Carolina Parent, Piedmont Parent and Charlotte Parent magazines — has the enthusiastic endorsement of Governor Pat McCrory. “I encourage families within North Carolina to register for this fantastic program and get out and get moving,” he said.
Coca-Cola has its biggest bottling facility in North Carolina, which may have something to do with McCrory's full-on support. (I wonder how much cash the company has put into the governor's campaign war chest? Just asking.)
Free to consumers, the Fit Family Challenge includes a mobile app, where users can start tracking their activity, eating habits and hydration levels. Families then earn points, based on participation, for a chance to win prizes during the program's eight-week run. Not being advertised is that this geo-marketing effort will give Coca-Cola and its partners, CVS and Morris Media Network, a huge amount of valuable consumer data just waiting to be monetized.
Challenge participants will receive wellness support via blogs, expert advice and information on free exercise classes on the Parent magazines' websites. I wonder if that includes any of the same expert bloggers who touted mini cans of Coke as health food?
Also available in South Carolina and Tennessee, the Fit Family Challenge is one more cog in a global marketing pivot. Two years ago Coca-Cola made a much-ballyhooed pledge to promote wellness and address the obesity problem. That included a plan to introduce more than 400 new beverage products, including 100 reduced-, low- or no-calorie drinks, and support more than 290 physical activity programs in nearly 125 countries across the world. By the end of 2013, the company had offered reduced-, low-, or no-calorie beverage options in 192 markets, according to its Web site. In 73 markets, 20% or more of its products were reduced-, low- or no-calorie beverages.
Coca-Cola Bottling Co. senior vice president Lauren Steele said in a statement that the Fit Family Challenge demonstrated the company's commitment to “promoting healthy, active lifestyles.”
It's really a lot more about Coca-Cola's global blueprint to reposition itself as health food.
J. Max Robins has chronicled and critiqued the industry from the birth of modern cable through the advent of Snapchat. The former award-winning editor-in-chief of Broadcasting & Cable, Robins has commented on industry issues for virtually every major media outlet from CNN to the Wall Street Journal. Currently, executive director of The Center for Communication, Robins writes the weekly MediaPost column "TV Everywhere."
Not even Don Draper could come up with this one.
I think your headline misses the point, but this is dead on: "Coca-Cola marketing brainiacs appear to believe that if a lie gets repeated enough times, people will begin think it's the truth." We see this everywhere. Money affords the platform and the herd becomes believers. So goes politics, entertainment, and yes, marketing. The thing is, relying on that alone leads to short-lived success.
The link to the bloggers isn't working. Can you provide that information?
Let me channel my inner Don Draper and argue the other side...
Content marketing is bringing out the hypocrisy police in journalists like never before.
Why? Because content marketing threatens traditional publishing. Brands are now essentially competing directly with Publishers for audiences.
Can Coke buy an ad page in Parent magazine and support it -- journalists would be happy with that. But can Coke (or Red Bull, or Starbucks) create health focused content themselves, set the agenda, and capture the data themselves-- well that seems to cross a line somewhere. That is the traditional role of Publishers.
I concede that Coca Cola's titular product is a deeply unhealthy beverage. They have a serious image problem. Fit Family Challenge may well be a bridge too far for them -- and could backfire.
At the same time, content marketing is now going mainstream. I reject that we should *automatically* conflate the products and policies of a corporate backer with the content itself.
Exhibit A: The Christian Science Monitor is a hundred year old content marketing campaign funded by a church founded on faith healing and anti-medicine beliefs. These are dangerous-- so why does the CSM get a pass? We regularly award it Pulitzers, and even consider it a respected pillar of journalism.
Because the CSM has a reputation for telling the truth with their content. That is what actually matters.
You want to play gotcha with Coke? Show me how Fit Family is actually promoting drinking sugary soda, because then it is NOT telling the truth. If Fit Family is encouraging people to exercise, or drink AquaFina or make healthier choices within the Coca Cola brand umbrella, then I reject your gotcha.
Yes it may be a cynical move and undoubtedly there is hypocrisy, but if branded content is going to exist, if we are going to get our news from Starbucks and Morning Joe, then we have to evaluate it on its own merits. Is it good, and is it truthful?