On National Kindness Day, Coca-Cola took a new and innovative approach to rebrand their company across all their social media platforms. Since the social media space as a whole has been increasingly plagued with more and more negative or controversial content, Coca-Cola took the high road with this campaign. Coca-Cola rebranded by providing positive and uplifting messages about life in general after a blackout across all their social platforms.
The only thing you need to be is yourself. 🙌 #RefreshTheFeed pic.twitter.com/mKwUZRhwLS
— Coca-Cola (@CocaCola) November 16, 2018
This blackout stirred a lot of commotion as followers were not sure what Coke was doing or why. As a result, this aggressive social approach pre and post media blackout created some controversy.
So @CocaCola what’s up with this #Refreshthefeed thing 👀
— RYSE Media 📍 (@ryse_mediatt) November 14, 2018
Who else unfollowed @CocaCola on all sm because of today's #spam #toomuchcoke #refreshthefeed #WorldKindnessDay #stillnotswitchingtopepsi
— camerameron (@camerameron) November 13, 2018
Can't decide if this is genuis or annoying, little of both, but check out @CocaCola's #RefreshTheFeed campaign. #smm #WorldKindnessDay https://t.co/5OZ8gJG18K
— Melissa Artobello (@lissawithm) November 13, 2018
However, this marketing strategy is a refreshing and innovative approach to change the mission of a company and allow for its users to love the brand rather than the product. This is especially important since consumers feel that companies such as (Facebook, Google, etc.) are just using them for data mining and cannot be trusted.
This new format also created a visually pleasing grid on Instagram.
@CocaCola’s new branding is SO aesthetic. #RefreshTheFeed #NAITPR pic.twitter.com/Gr344twYVU
— Alexa Prins (@YEGAlexa) November 13, 2018
The power of positive #marketing 🙌 Way to go @CocaCola on your #RefreshtheFeed campaign, going ‘dark’ to bring light to social and share messages of positivity… https://t.co/snpjaF6iMj
— Aline Santos (@alinecsantos) November 19, 2018
With this new approach of social rebranding and multitudes of controversy online, I am intrigued to see if this strategy will be copied among other brands.