Coca Cola's Version of the Coke Side of Life.

I discovered Coke's side of my blog post on the Coke Side of Life and decided to include it on the blog. This would help you decide if the ad actually met the expectations of Coke. Was the ad worth the money? Did the ad portray what coke intended it to be? These should be at the back of your mind as you compare this post with my previous post.

"We live in a world where we make choices every day and The Coke Side of Life encourages people to make those choices positive ones," said Marc Mathieu, senior vice president for carbonated soft drink core brands, Marketing, Strategy and Innovation, The Coca-Cola Company. "This new campaign invites people to create their own positive reality, to be spontaneous, listen to their hearts and live in full color."Coca-Cola has always been at its best when it reflects the simple, optimistic moments in life. The Coke Side of Life recognizes that the most universal experiences are those where Coca-Cola is refreshingly honest and uplifting

Helping Orphans?

I came across one of De- United Food’s Indomie noodles Feed Your Hero commercials the other day. It was my first time. The fact that I had written a piece pertaining to the campaign, made me put my ears to the ground. I was so glad when the ad was repeated two more times.

The ad opens up with a young girl calling out to her mom inquiring whether food was ready. Weighed down by a lack of immediate response, the girl decides to get creative. Sorry, a creative muse suddenly overtakes her. She sights a guitarist, and decides to be mischievous. Her choice of mischief is what turns the ad around. Against the backdrop of a sign, ‘Help the Orphans’ and joined by her friends and guitarist she makes a case for orphans. Her song draws many others -who as we are made to believe- abandon all they had on their hands to get to the source of the open air mini-music carnival. Expectantly her mother is also attracted by the sound and rushes to the arena. No, she walks to the place-with the food in her hand. It wouldn’t have made sense if she had to rush to the scene too. But she manages to baffle me by not expressing any surprise at the goings on. Surprisingly, she takes the music carnival in stride, evidenced by her smiles. I could see that they wanted us to believe that she was expecting the ensuing scenes.

Nonetheless, as the ad climaxes, I see people putting monies in a box. Apparently, they were donating to the orphans. Then the feeding part is spotlighted with the girl and guitarist been the only visible beneficiaries-sorry, Heroes- of the Indomie meal. And I begin to wonder why the ad shut out the orphans-the reason for all the noise. I thought orphans could be sighted easily on the street corners. And since the ad setting was at a street corner, they should have, in the least been given a place in the ad. The mini-music carnival would have been a nice platform for them to come in. And they would have appreciated the meal of Indomie noodles that was served only the girl and the guitarist! Besides, who were the heroes in the ad? The girl and the guitarist… No fight on that, but I thought society was replete with many cases of orphans who turned society around for good. Can’t orphans turn out to be heroes? Wouldn’t orphans appreciate a meal of Indomie? Shouldn’t the orphans be given some share of voice or face in the ad?

Addressing the apparent neglect or oversight of a face or voice of the orphans would have brought the message home. The commercial would have been more engaging. It would have carried along with it a high level of emotional attachment. It would have swayed more consumers to buy the Indomie brands since they would have emotionally believed that Indomie stood for the cause of the orphans. Maybe Indomie should go ahead and organize an Adopt-An-Orphan campaign. It would present a huge share of market and voice. It will also create long-lasting emotional dispositions by consumers with the Indomie brand. This would also pursue the cause of their corporate social responsibility.

Indomie please feed the real heroes.

Virgin Colours or Virgin Drinks

I saw this name for a range of plastic bottled drinks on a billboard and it stopped me on my tracks. Colours for drinks!!! Please somebody tell me about the connection. Maybe I'm getting too naive. How on earth are colours the main stay of a soft drinks. I mean I thought the concentrate was more important. Anyway, I thought colours didn't really pass a message with the pictures of bottles. And besides even in such cases who would stop anyone from wandering whether colours came in plastic bootles now. Sincerely, the name of a product counts. It should strike a chord with the human senses on the nature of the product. Drinks are drinks, flavours are falvours and colours are colours. Let's no muddle up things. Believe me: the average Nigerian would view these range of drinks as the normal colorants formerly packaged in polythene bags that used to sell for N1 in the late 80s and early 90s. And i remeber how parents used to discourage their children from going anywhere near those sugar and colour drinks! There is more to a name. It strikes a chord and should strike a chord.

Virgin Colours or Virgin Drinks

The Coke Side of Life

I saw this ad from far and was really fascinated by the header. It was different. I tried to know for myself what the Coke side of life had in store. I saw colours, coloures and more colours. I kept wondering what the whole ad had to convey. And when i had the opportunity to go real closer, I was amazed. Perplexed would have been a better word. There was the National Theatre Iganmu Lagos, some singing folks, some dancing folks, cowrie like objects...I could not still make a head or tail. So I sought to know from one of my friends what was on the Coke side of life and he said he had seen a bus (popularly called 'molue' ). He had not helped matters. I was privledged to ask my co-workers and two of them gave me a shocking reply. "The normal Coke 18-month interval adverts'" one blurted out. The bottomline: the ad had not elicited any desire for him to check out what was actually on the Coke side of life.
Impressions have been made and it's been amazing. The Coke side of life did not present any concrete details to anybody. For anybody that cares: who wants to get 'jiggy' (excuse my language). The Coke side of life for me was plenty of colour, plenty of activity and plenty of chaos. It hardly gave thought to the same people who are supposed to be the inhabitants of the Coke side. With many unclear and fazed figurines, symbols, sillhouttes and whatever, Coke has to do some explaining. Besides, the view of people of the ad as another 'normal' ad is really pathhetic. It's a wake up call Coca Cola. Take a cue from MTN whose ads always manage to elicit some or great positive response. Definitely Coca Cola is having it hard, keeping up the tag of being 'it'.

The world of adverising is a fascinating one. With billions of monies spent on campaigns, branding and publicity, the adverts continue to register their imprints in large numbers. Despite the giant strides, a lot of sensitisation in the processes, products, messages and concepts of ads still require more work. It would be worthwhile to consider the most important people in the ad processes-the audiences and or recipients or publics-before choosing the messages, medium, language and forms.

In a world bereft of detail, most adverts have been hard hit. A direct consequence is failure to achieve intended targets. It is the fallout of these undetailed, unfocused and ill-advised adverts that this blog tends to address. The blog would do this by taking a critical analysis at ads and the messages passed on to the final audience. The impact of the messages, the misinformation of audiences, and the lack of thought put into the adverts would also be highlight. Of course, it is not intended to pull the ads down but a way of improving standards in the ad scene. The blog would also give necessary tips on ads that fail to meet audience standards and responses from the public.
This ADcritiq blog aims to encourage standards in adverising, copywriting, branding, and product packaging. The perceptions, the putoffs, the bugs, the thrill.... that come with thse markets would receive adequate space on this blog.

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