Coca Cola’s Reaction to the death of George Floyd
Coca Cola stands out from the marketing campaign to appeal to social responsibility.
Did you consider why brands response the major event in real time? How does the brand inspire the social change and what does brand gain form it?
Two weeks ago, a black-man, George Floyd was killed by white police office Derek Chauvin which raised demonstrations and protests. Coca Cola was quick to come up with “Together we must” movement to stands out with the Black Lives Matter on the website. Meanwhile, the CEO of Coca Cola immediately post a video named “Where We Stand on Social Justice” to indicate their social justice for this event. The Coca Cola company come out four main areas- listening, leading, investing, advocating to against racial injustice. Coca Cola also released a statement on Twitter on June, declaring on that it would be donating to 100 Black Men “as a part of the effort to end systemic racism and bring true equality to all.” While Coca Cola posted a background picture and white “together we must” with “BlackLivesMatter” hashtag on Instagram.
I think Coca Cola did a great job in the event. First reason, based on the response of Coca Cola in social media for the death of George Floyd, Coca Cola enhanced their reputation and social responsibility. As the largest beverage company in the U.S, Coca Cola company think they play an important role to support diversity and inclusive in the U.S. Considering that Africa American is the one of the biggest target markets of Coca Cola, Coca Cola do not want to lose their target market and want to keep the loyalty customer and keep brand image. The second reason is that the response of Coca cola raised brand awareness by addressing the issues of systemic ethnic inequity through the released statement and picture in social media. Social media is a great platform to reach large audience, to direct connection with the audience and to create a viral content to reach a cost-efficient marketing campaign.
Considering that the long-term development of Coca Cola, the reaction of Coca Cola company not only build a social responsible brand image but also build customer loyalty because Coca Cola company stands out in the social justice to drive the company future development and implementation of additional business actions.
Coca Cola CEO James Quincey posted his speech “Where We Stand on Social Justice” at the virtual employee town hall on its corporate blog to response to the racial injustice to guarantee more diverse leadership, announcing that the company’s poor representation. Besides, Coca Cola using social media channels to promote the message “Together we must” on Instagram and Twitter. The picture “together we must” in Instagram get 13,722likes and 396 comments with the hashtag “BlackLivesMatter”. In Twitter, Coca Cola posted the picture “together we must” with “BlackLivesMatter” hashtag which got 616 likes, 171 comments and 187 forward. Social media posts and ads are dominant ways to drive website traffic especially posted hot content in Instagram and Twitter that is a great way to get readers as soon as publish a new post to increase brand awareness.
