Coke's Mistakes

I was going to put this into some sort of chronological order, but I've decided I can't be bothered. These are all the posts I've made regarding Dasani in recent weeks in one compact, easy to ignore serving. Enjoy.

Mistake 1: Underestimating the importance of total product honesty

• Flameproof | new | Dasani I hereby crown myself marketing guru. At least I saw what was going to happen... Of course at first, it was just bad PR.
  
• BBC | Soft drink is purified tap water
  
• Evening Standard | Real thing or rip off?
  It was only a matter of time before this particular PR coup blew up in Coke's faces. Glad to know I wasn't the only person to think of Peckham Springs! It'll be interesting to see what they do now. More in this pop up window. This of course is simply a case of not getting people on-side.
  
• PRWeek | Water PRs dodge the Dasani flak Coke maintained that they were going to continue with the product; understandable, they are the second biggest water product in the states. (Interestingly, the first is Aquafina, Pepsi's reverse-osmosis water!)
  

Mistake 2: Not taking the target market's laws into account

• Dasani.fr In fact, Dasani's been discontinued Europe-wide, and will probably remain so.
  
• BBC | Coke recalls controversial water
  
• The Guardian | Things get worse with Coke... and finally, Dasani is taken off the market.
  
• Motley Fool | Coke Drains Dasani March 23, 2004 But fail they did, and the second blow was mortal.
  

Biggest mistake: not communicating the reasons behind changes

This was not Coke's most infamous blunder, of course. Almost 19 years ago (round about the launch of Back to the Future in cinemas) Coke took a bold step and changed the recipe for their flagship product.

It didn't go down very well.

• New Coke versus Old Coke
  
• God, What a Blunder: The New Coke Story
  
• Urban Legends Reference Pages: Cokelore (Knew Coke): "It's inconceivable to us mere mortals that a company of the size and scope of Coca-Cola could make a mistake on the scale of the one it made in 1985" Except those of us who've seen them do it again...
  
• Coca-Cola - Heritage - Cokelore- the real story of New Coke Coke's own take on the situation.
  

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Zombie advice

With films such as Dawn of the Dead and Shaun of the Dead coming out there is a growing public awareness that it's never too late to be prepared for zombie attacks. Unless you've been eaten by zombies, I guess.

• The Zombie Survival Guide
  
• ILZ - A Survival Guide for a Zombie World
  
• Zombie Alert -- Home Protection for Sophisticated Families
  

Wouldn't you feel silly if you didn't read these, and then this happened to you?

• Trapped By Undead, Need Help - a web diary
  Zombie Infection Simulation v2.3 Gain an understanding of how they propogate.
  

Alternatively, you could just cash in on them instead.

Brains4Zombies.com -- Your online home for Brains and Brain-Related Products

Oh, and it's not really related, but it's my favourite zombie-like film: 28 Days Later.

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Northstowe

I'm working on the proposed New Town just outside Cambridge, Longstanton-Oakington, now to be called Northstowe.

Gallagher Estates Northstowe

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The Third Wave

Could it happen again? What drives people to cover up obvious injustices? A teacher tried a week-long experiment into the psychology of fascism that could have gone very wrong.

• The Third Wave a reasonably long article from the teacher himself.


• And we thought it couldn't happen a look at the experiment.

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Memes

The meme of memes has been around for a while (1976 to be exact), and is one that has influenced me before. I suppose if this is a concept that you subscribe to then my mental antibodies must be rubbish! I've chosen now to post this concept however because Cecil at the Straight Dope makes some interesting points on the concept of memes and whether they negate the need for a 'mind'.

• Memes A scholarly approach.
  
• Memes: An Introduction a slightly more accessible version.
  
• Straight Dope: What's a Meme? even easier.
  
• Straight Dope: The Teeming Millions lose their minds and the new spin; don't memes get rid of me?
  

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Boycott

It sometimes seems that every company in existence has some pressure group against it somewhere.

Amazon, American Goods, Bennetton, BP, Danone, Esso, Gillette, Google, Israeli Goods, KFC, McDonalds, Microsoft, Nike, RIAA (Recording Industry), Shell, Taco Bell, Just about everything...

Problem is, most of these operate under many different bands- Danone for example also trade as Jacobs, Lu, Lea & Perrins and HP in the UK. How do you make sure you're supporting the ones held for issues you feel are the right ones and not the stupid ones?

• They Rule
  
• Boycott City
  
• BadCorp.org This is the one to read- an eloquently Stated lowdown of the 9 worst companies and the products they make.
  
• http://infact.org
  
• Responsible Shopper
  
• Metafilter | History of the Boycott
  

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