Coca-Cola found itself at the center of a heated (global) debate when the brand’s community manager opened a Facebook thread about their Dasani water. With 3.6MM fans, the #2 brand on Facebook, starts threads on their discussion tab daily. But on August 5, 2009, Coca-Cola began to realize that even on pages where most people are fans, not all people are fans.
The seemingly innocent topic started with a question that would rally 88 skeptics (as of this post):
“Congress is demanding to know the sites and sources of Coke’s Dasani brand water. When will Coke tell the public where its water is coming from?”
To start, I applaud Coca-Cola’s willingness to enter the conversation to state its position, restraint in stepping away from the conversation after stating that position, and still allowing the community to discuss the hot issue (i.e. where does Dasani get its water). While I don’t recommend using humor to diffuse a situation like Coca-Cola attempted, at least they’re trying to display humanly characteristics. I like that they displayed firmness with their position and even pointed people to their site for more information. Another nice element is that Coca-Cola responded fairly quickly. Within three hours of the initial post Coca-Cola had formed an opinion; something we can solve by going through scenario planning before we open topics on the discussion tab.
There’s an important underlying issue that Coca-Cola now faces: ensure that this topic doesn’t jump into another social space.
Of the 100 threads started by Coca-Cola, this thread has received the most comments. And even weeks after breaking, the thread continues to receive new posts. The important thing for Coca-Cola at this point is to monitor other social platforms to make sure someone doesn’t throw the conversation to Twitter to blow up. On Facebook fan pages, it’s growing increasingly important to monitor conversations that garner attention/comments faster than normal. This allows brands to address issues before it reaches critical mass.
The Takeaway
What worked:
• Responded within hours of initial post
• Re-affirmed position in a second post instead of changing stance
• Kept the conversation going instead of closing the thread
• Giving a link to more information about their process
• Tried to change the subject by opening new thread topics
• Using a branded URL shortener to track user interactions
What didn’t work:
• Trying to diffuse the situation with humor
What they need to do:
• Monitor other social platforms (e.g. Twitter) to make sure the conversation doesn’t jump and then blow-up
• Prevent users from making personal attacks on each other
Coke did some things right. But if implemented from here on out, the lessons they (hopefully) learned will produce better corporate respect and more loyal fans.
Comments
Connections
It’s up to 108 now…
More “important” questions:
Where does the water that is used to make Coca-Cola come from?
What about the water in lemonade?
Or Iced Tea?
Percentage-wise, a lot more water is probably used in making soda than water. But no one seems to care about this? Makes no sense to me.
For the location: I’m going to guess wherever they have a water bottling plant is where there get the water. And where ever they have a Coke bottling plant they probably get the water for the Coke there. Need lots of water to make drinks that have water as the number one ingredient.
If they don’t get it local, follow the (empty) trucks that bring in water back to the source.
Gary
http://GarySaid.com/
I think you are missing a big part of the story Kai.
A Coke fan page admin started the Dasani topic after hundreds of people had posted on their wall.
Check out out http://consumerist.com/5335868/facebook-members-go-after-coca+cola
and
http://www.stopcorporateabuse.org/alternet-momentum-gathers-against-coke-tell-them-reveal-source-dasani-water
Coke is being attacked by a sophisticated international campaign that is calling into question the fundamentals of their bottled water business. This group, Corporate Accountability International are the same ones that led the charges against Nestle in the 70’s and forced them to change the marketing of infant formula.
I think Coke is way behind on this issue. It has already gained critical mass. Search twitter for dasani tap. Hundreds of tweets that claim that Dasani is just tap water or saying that tap water is better.
To move forward Coke should follow what Nestle and Pepsi have already done and implement the changes called for by activists (label Dasani as coming from a public water source) rather then face continued erosion of brand equity.
Sarita,
Very good points. I actually didn’t have the full back-story. Knowing that the discussion was started by fans changes the dynamic. In that case, it’s interesting that Coca-Cola tried to move the conversation off the w\Wall and into the tab. While both generate newsfeeds at least new visitors to the site aren’t bombarded by seemingly negative brand topics on the Wall.
Again, thanks