Coca Cola

Under a legal point of view there are many regulations to condition the companies’ marketing campaigns. However Coca Cola seems to have created one of the most creative, controversial and successful advertising campaigns ever seen opening happiness' between India and Pakistan. Two countries with many social, economic and political problems, and which have irreconcilable differences between them. What makes it even more rewarding is that it is all about spreading happiness providing a live communications portal between people in India and Pakistan. The “leitmotif” of this campaign is that what unites us is stronger than what sets us apart. In my opinion the political element raises the stakes considerably, though. Coca Cola diplomacy runs the risk of coming across as painfully naive by oversimplifying a complex issue that is tangled up in a long history of imperialism, religious conflict and nuclear stand-off. Coca Cola frames this powder keg of a problem as simply one of miscommunication. In my opinion Coca Cola is trivializing when it is distilling a geopolitical conflict into short-form branded content and it can do more harm than good.
Coke as a company provides soda as their main good of sale. One is left to wonder, why are they suddenly in the business of creating happiness? It leaves me to ponder, that perhaps Coca-Cola is working to combat new health research proving that soda is detrimental for health. That is why they are working to strengthen their reputation by creating this Open Happiness campaign. The objective is to change the perception that customers hold from a perception of health risk to one of happiness. I criticize it because I believe the masses should critically think about the motivations of the campaign and why it has been implemented. Coca-Cola and its beverage industry brethren have the dubious distinction of being the biggest contributors to the countries obesity crisis. Living in a health conscious society, one should consider this...