http://www.livepositively.com/#/home
If you follow the link above, you will enter livepositively.com, a website owned and operated by the Coca Cola Company. By creating a profile, you are able to give the Coca Cola Company feedback about their products, become involved in community improvement projects, volunteer as a helper for youth and medical charities, and enter My Coke Reward points (a reward system for drinking Coca Cola products) to benefit local schools. By maintaining a website like this, the Coca Cola Company is able to support its image as a caring, environment-oriented company that is striving to be green despite the difficult economic times.
The image of a caring business is an example of a social myth. Though they may be willing to partake in charity events or donate resources towards worthwhile causes, the Coca Cola Company remains a business. Their main goal is to make money and move product however they can. Coca Cola appears to be going the extra mile with this website; browsing around, you can see a plethora of Coke-sponsored activities ranging from recycling to civic action. With society moving more and more rapidly towards green technology and business practices, however, this is revealed as nothing more than a clever way to maximize profits by meeting the popular expectation. With college campus boycotts of Coca Cola products becoming more and more prevalent, the company needs every bit of popular praise it can get.
If you follow the “planet” heading on the aforementioned website and click on the section labeled “water conservation,” you will find an overview of the Coca Cola Company’s efforts to maintain local water tables around its bottling plants. With an average consumption of over three liters of water for ever liter of Coca Cola produced, it makes sense that the company would be concerned for this resource.
Despite water’s necessity to the company and their claims of sustainability, many local communities in proximity to Coca Cola bottling plants have protested the company’s presence, claiming that the plants negatively impact local water tables. The Coca Cola Company was ejected from India in 1977, and all plants in that nation were shut down. During this period without the company’s presence, water levels were kept at a relatively steady level. The company was able to negotiate its return, however, after which the water levels suffered once again. A plant in the village of Kaladera, located in the semi-arid desert state of Rajasthan, began functioning in 2000, and by 2005 the local water tables had dropped by over ten meters. Why would a company that claims to be so committed to sustainable water practices open a plant in a desert state, let alone accept such a dramatic decline in water supply?
Information on the Coca Cola’s practices in Indian is not nearly prevalent enough to compete with the company’s “feel good” advertising campaign, and the myth of Coca Cola as a caring company remains. With protest groups unable to match the Coca Cola Company’s annual advertising budget of two billion dollars, it is likely to remain for a very long time, until enough proof of their actions overseas is presented and the general public is made aware of the unseen costs tied to their bottled drink.
Click HERE to open the feedback tool.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Public Oppinion
The public image of a company plays a heavy role in the perception and interpretation of that company’s actions. Nike Inc. has endured heavy criticism since the 1990s for the human rights violations and child labor usage in their overseas factories. Public response to this has been one of condemnation, including boycotts on college campuses, undercover footage taken within Nike production facilities, and even the competitive withdrawal of Chinese Olympian, Liu Xiang, who protested Nike sponsorship and apparel at the 2008 Summer Games.
Compared to this, the critical action taken against Coca-Cola for the alleged kidnapping, torture, and murder of SINALTRAINAL employees in Columbia has been relatively weak: an overturned lawsuit, several college boycotts that are struggling to take hold, and a committed critical website. Why are people hesitating to attack Coca-Cola at the same level that Nike has experienced? Watch the below videos and consider their messages as you do:
Nike’s commercial is intimidating, aggressive, powerful, and serious. Every mask that appears on a player’s head symbolizes the dedication and sacrifice that they have put into their sport to become a competitive force. It establishes Nike’s image as an uncompromising, hard-hitting apparel source for athletes that aren’t afraid to do what they must to rise to the top. It is not too far of a stretch to imagine that a company which provides such hard-hitting apparel to their customers would be similarly efficient and uncompromising in their business practice.
The Coca-Cola commercial sends a completely different message. They suggest that their product should be associated with whimsical ideals, colorful imagery, fanfare, comedy, and general good nature. With an image like this, it would be difficult to imagine successfully charging the Coca-Cola Company with hiring a paramilitary force to commit acts of terrorism in the name of lower production cost.
This advertising driven image campaign is not limited only to commercials. Take a minute to visit the home pages of each company’s website, which are linked below.
http://store.nike.com/index.jsp?country=US&cp=USNS_KW_0611081619&lang_locale=en_US
http://www.coca-cola.com/index.jsp
The first thing you see on Nike’s page is a sepia colored image of an exhausted boxer leaning on the ropes after his sparring match. Next to him is the phrase “determined to dominate,” which is referring to the new Manny Pacquiao clothing line. Browsing through the other title pages show similarly success oriented promotion for their clothing line. This campaign reinforces the same themes that were mentioned before and helps to establish Nike as a ruthless, assertive company in the public eye.
The Coca-Cola website has a more direct message: “open happiness.” The subtext of this phrase is so clear that it hardly needs to be restated: drinking Coca-Cola will make you happy. With an advertising campaign that directly associates the product with good feelings, it is easy to see what sort of public opinion would form.
It is hard to believe that something like public perception can influence whether or not a company is held accountable for their actions. The effects are visible, however, and we should all try to keep an unbiased and objective view when regarding a company’s actions outside of the shopping aisle.
Click HERE to open the feedback tool.
Compared to this, the critical action taken against Coca-Cola for the alleged kidnapping, torture, and murder of SINALTRAINAL employees in Columbia has been relatively weak: an overturned lawsuit, several college boycotts that are struggling to take hold, and a committed critical website. Why are people hesitating to attack Coca-Cola at the same level that Nike has experienced? Watch the below videos and consider their messages as you do:
Nike’s commercial is intimidating, aggressive, powerful, and serious. Every mask that appears on a player’s head symbolizes the dedication and sacrifice that they have put into their sport to become a competitive force. It establishes Nike’s image as an uncompromising, hard-hitting apparel source for athletes that aren’t afraid to do what they must to rise to the top. It is not too far of a stretch to imagine that a company which provides such hard-hitting apparel to their customers would be similarly efficient and uncompromising in their business practice.
The Coca-Cola commercial sends a completely different message. They suggest that their product should be associated with whimsical ideals, colorful imagery, fanfare, comedy, and general good nature. With an image like this, it would be difficult to imagine successfully charging the Coca-Cola Company with hiring a paramilitary force to commit acts of terrorism in the name of lower production cost.
This advertising driven image campaign is not limited only to commercials. Take a minute to visit the home pages of each company’s website, which are linked below.
http://store.nike.com/index.jsp?country=US&cp=USNS_KW_0611081619&lang_locale=en_US
http://www.coca-cola.com/index.jsp
The first thing you see on Nike’s page is a sepia colored image of an exhausted boxer leaning on the ropes after his sparring match. Next to him is the phrase “determined to dominate,” which is referring to the new Manny Pacquiao clothing line. Browsing through the other title pages show similarly success oriented promotion for their clothing line. This campaign reinforces the same themes that were mentioned before and helps to establish Nike as a ruthless, assertive company in the public eye.
The Coca-Cola website has a more direct message: “open happiness.” The subtext of this phrase is so clear that it hardly needs to be restated: drinking Coca-Cola will make you happy. With an advertising campaign that directly associates the product with good feelings, it is easy to see what sort of public opinion would form.
It is hard to believe that something like public perception can influence whether or not a company is held accountable for their actions. The effects are visible, however, and we should all try to keep an unbiased and objective view when regarding a company’s actions outside of the shopping aisle.
Click HERE to open the feedback tool.
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