coca cola's taste strategy

small banners in sari-sari stores carry the image of the angel with the line "tikman ang sarap". as mentioned previously, coke is obviously on a back to basics, taste strategy. and that's a very good thing. i think it's the right thing to do for coke. coke has strayed away too much from it's core positioning that it's good they now have the political will and the smarts to go back to their roots.

however, coke now runs the risk of falling off a cliff in getting confused on what exactly is their campaign. they now have a few lines that they seem to use in different media and at times a pair of them at the same time: "ang sarap dito", "tikman ang sarap" and "buhay coke tikman mo".

i hope coke has developed a brand architecture for this ad campaign to make sure they don't shoot themselves in the foot. in advertising, too many of a good thing can kill.

the question that must be raging in the minds of the ad agency and client is this - what else can we do to exploit the success of the ad campaign?

i am sure events and other below the line are in their minds now. the problem of course is the talent is not a pinoy. she probably speaks english but it will be very costly to get her to go to the philippines to do events for them. it's very lame, but i'm sure the coke creative team has asked the brazilian talent if she can sing or dance. hahaha. damn, i hope coke does not go through that route if they bring her to the philippines.

but that one is a whole new discussion all together.

back to basics - coke is on single minded taste strategy now. i bet they are now conducting a tracking study to see if taste is getting picked up and if this campaign is changing attitudes and bringing in the cases.

is this taste strategy enough to overcome the price problem? they need to stop migration away from coke and to attract new users. is taste enough?