Coca Cola’s social listening has helped it capture uplifting consumer energy in its new ad, which speaks to themes of gratitude for things we’ve previously taken for granted. It emphasizes social connection and openness – and hits the mark on every level. This savvy brand recognized that consumers are tiring of the “in it together” message and have moved beyond to the next stage. Let’s see how that looks!
In this article, we’ll explore how social listening can help your company spot an emerging trend, including the new narrative of positive mental attitude (PMA) within brand messaging. We’ll share:
- How a brand’s message must mirror consumer hearts to win praise
- Ways to observe a change in consumer narrative
- How Coca-Cola’s past promotional approaches have lead a natural path to this one
And these stats and facts are relevant to keep in mind:
- Influencer marketing can target your consumers more effectively and boost customer loyalty
- 80% of consumers say they are more likely to shop with companies who respond to consumers directly – having the right social analytics can help you identify where to respond
- Brands who give back have better brand loyalty, often lasting a lifetime
Messaging Matters
When COVID-19 hit, brands shifted their narrative to adapt to an appropriate COVID-19 message of “we’re all in this together”. And Coca Cola was a first mover in this, sharing empathy and kindness, which has been vital in winning consumer love.
This was timely considering consumer feelings at the time. One thing is certain however, consumer sentiment changes quickly and pivoting is critical to maintaining brand devotion.
Coca Cola was at the ready, armed with competitive consumer intelligence to assist them in being first in positive messaging as the world shifts into a new normal.
Coca-Cola Shifts Consumer Approach Ahead of Pack
Market research helps us see what allowed Coca-Cola to position themselves to respond quickly. Our conversation cluster centered around the theme of “We are in this together” unveils conversations that might otherwise have been missed, with each cluster revealing segments of conversation from blogs, papers and articles. A curious cluster appears called “We aren’t all in this together” with a few articles questioning the authenticity of the sentiment.
And our timeline view of the same conversation shows that in April it was growing as an emerging trend that’s persisted until today – quickly becoming one of the largest segments:
And supporting this with social listening, we can reveal what consumers say and feel. Some feel the message of “in this together” only applies to celebrities:
While others feel the phrase is “useless:”
In this controversial time, Coca-Cola is providing hope by injecting a little positive mental attitude (PMA) in their messaging.
Letting go of the idea that we will go back to “normal,” they inspire hope and personal connection within their new ad, joining with well-loved social justice influencer, George the Poet. He has 90K+ followers on Instagram and they love everything about this ad:
Influencer Marketing Helps Coca-Cola Capture Consumer Energy
Coca-Cola obviously knows that influencer marketing is powerful and can boost customer loyalty. They also must know that 92% of shoppers trust an influencer over a traditional advertisement. But how did they know who to collaborate with? That takes social analytics to sort out, preferably a tool that can first help you spot an emerging trend. We know a place, and a robust set of tools uniquely equipped to inform around both.
Quid Social reveals what people are saying about Coca-Cola by sorting social media posts and blogs, dividing them into valuable pockets of information that are easily sourced and analyzed. For example, here are interactive clusters of consumer conversation around Coca-Cola:
As we can narrow down exactly where people are talking, our bar chart shows which categories are being talked about and where. Knowing where consumers are talking is vital for a brand to adjust their marketing, or address a consumer concern personally. 80% of consumers say they are more likely to shop with companies who respond to consumers directly, after all – so be sure to do that!
And NetBase Quid social analytics offers up social media posts by consumers who are praising Coca-Cola’s ability to roll with the punches and produce this extremely on-point ad:
And this type of effort by Coca-Cola isn’t outside the norm, they have a long history of understanding its target audience and humanizing its brand.
Coca-Cola’s History of Humanizing Its Brand
During the 1970’s, there were many similar social justice and equality conversations to what we see happening today. During this cultural shift and upset, Coca-Cola’s commercial featured a multicultural collection of teenagers singing and promoting the positive message of hope and love.
Coca-Cola’s knowledge of consumers and their ability to spot an emerging trend launched this simple song into infamy with many calling it one of the most loved and influential ads in the history of TV. Coca-Cola showed first-mover moxie as this commercial was the first example of the recording industry’s participation with advertising.
The jingle would go on to be #1 in the UK and #7 in the U.S. In people-forward fashion, Coca-Cola waived royalties to the song and instead donated $80K in payments to UNICEF. And, as we all know – brands who give back foster lifetime loyalty. They have that, for sure.
There was also their ‘Share a Coke’ campaign where they focused on their younger consumers and began printing names on the labels. And each one of these marketing campaigns were focused on consumers first. They were successful for that reason.
This understanding pays off for Coca-Cola, as indicated in our sentiment word wheel and word cloud below:
Coca-Cola continues to experience success because they can spot emerging trends ahead of the pack, and they have customer experience at the heart of everything they do. We can help you find the way to your consumers’ hearts with a powerful next generation AI-powered consumer and market intelligence combo served up in easy to navigate dashboards. Reach out for a demo and teach the world to sing your brand’s song!
