There’s a reason why Coca-Cola is consistently ranked in the top ten of Forbes’ “World’s Most Valuable Brands” list.  Throughout the years, it has been a paradigm shifting, rule breaking, all-round marketing power house. It has produced some of the greatest campaigns in the history of advertising, ranging from its iconic glass shaped bottle, which has recently celebrated its 100^th anniversary, to the ‘Share a Coke’ Australian promotion of 2011. This campaign recorded a total of 18,300,000-plus media impressions, an 870% increase in traffic on the Australian Coke Facebook site and led to Coca-Cola Australia’s most successful summer ever.

Undoubtedly, with increasingly health conscious consumers, Coca-Cola is desperately trying to win over the general populous after its introduction of Coke Zero in 2006. Recently, Coca-Cola Australia announced the latest addition to the Coca-Cola family – Coca-Cola Life. It is a version of Coca-Cola that contains lower calories than the original and is produced with stevia and 35% less sugar. Coke-Cola Australia will be challenging consumers to ‘Let Life Surprise You’ and will undertake a fully integrated marketing campaign over a plethora of media channels. The product also speaks for itself and the green packaging – a move away from Coke’s iconic red – is immediately perceived by both adults and children as a healthier and better alternative than identical food packaged in other colours.

Coca-Cola Life

In the United Kingdom, where Coca-Cola Life was launched in September 2014, consumers are struggling to identify the difference between all the varieties of Coke (that is, the original Coca-Cola, Diet Coke, Coke Zero and Coke Life). This has led the development of a ‘One Brand’ strategy, where individual brand campaigns will be scraped and the focus will be on clearly communicating product differentiation.

Despite Coca-Cola’s successes, there are signs of deterioration. In 2014, Coca-Cola’s profits declined by 14% and much of this can be attributed to a growing awareness of our health and wellbeing. Coca-Cola has tried to overcome this by introducing ‘portion control’ options – namely, smaller can sizes – which has been echoed by more and more American food companies. It also tried – and failed miserably – to position itself as being ‘part of the solution’ by supporting sport initiatives and encouraging people to drink Coke as part of a balanced diet with daily exercise.

The struggle of Coca-Cola to maintain its relevance is certainly a sign of the times. The evidence is conclusive – sugary soft drinks does contribute to the obesity epidemic and no amount of spin or PR can hide the fact that a can of Coca-Cola Life still contains colouring, caffeine, phosphoric acid and 19% of our recommended daily sugar intake. Ultimately, it appears that the introduction of Coca-Cola life is a decision to increase the health of the companies’ profits rather than the health of consumers.