Case analysis: Coca-Cola’s brand naming, slogan, and brand story

Coca-Cola is currently a popular brand and beverage choice, and everyone can easily afford it. This article will analyze Coca-Cola in detail through brand naming, slogans, brand stories and other cases. If you are interested, come and have a look.

The brand value system includes: text system and visual system.

Among them, the brand text system includes brand naming, brand slogan, brand story, brand value proposition, etc.

Building a text system helps establish customers’ basic understanding of the brand and emphasizes differentiated advantages.

This article mainly analyzes the three basic elements in Coca-Cola's brand text system: naming, slogan, and brand story.

To analyze the text system, we have to start with two things. The first is the "copycat" history of Coca-Cola, and the second is the positioning of Coca-Cola.

01 Brand Development History

Coca-Cola originated in the golden age of the American "health products" industry. The copycat of Coca-Cola is called Vimariani. This wine is made of Bordeaux red wine with the "magic drug" cocaine, which can bring "mental stimulation and physical shock" to people.

So the pharmacist, who was poor and addicted to morphine at the time, wanted to start a copycat business and make a substitute version of "French coca wine". The main ingredient used was coca nut powder (Cola).

It was natural for him to start a health wine business, but the good times didn't last long as he encountered the Prohibition of 1885.

So Pemberton chose to create a non-alcoholic formula, replacing alcohol with water, and mixing it into a soda drink, which also reduced the price a lot.

02 Brand Positioning

Because anything that can create a "magic moment" can be considered a magician's brand. From their history, we can see that ingredients like Cola originated from foreign countries or ancient times, or involved certain herbs or even magical rituals. It is obvious that the brand personality belongs to the magician.

Coca-Cola's brand philosophy: "Available to everyone, always representing joy and enthusiasm."

Andy Warhol once made the most famous summary of this:

That's the great thing about this country - it's a place where the richest people enjoy basically the same things as the poorest people.
When you see Coca-Cola on TV, you know that the President drinks Coca-Cola, Liz Taylor drinks Coca-Cola, and you can drink Coca-Cola. The Coca-Cola you drink is the same as everyone else's. No amount of money can buy you a better Coca-Cola than the bum on the street. All Coca-Cola is the same, and all Coca-Cola is good.

—Andy Warhol

According to the brand pyramid model, Coca-Cola's brand value proposition is sorted out as follows:

1. Brand Mission: To create brands and beverage choices that people love, to refresh the body and mind
2. Target consumers of the brand: Everyone
3. Consumer Insights: Refreshing drinks are needed, but they must be affordable
4. Brand keywords: Brand new, sustainable development
5. Functional benefits: Refreshing
6. Emotional benefits: happiness that everyone can enjoy

Based on this, the Coca-Cola brand value proposition description might be as follows:

Coca-Cola aims to create a brand and beverage choice that people love, and to refresh the body and mind. It hopes that everyone can easily afford it and be able to refresh the body and mind, while protecting the earth's resources, achieving sustainable development, and enjoying the happiness, freshness, vitality, and enthusiasm brought by the beverage. ——Description of brand value proposition

03 Text System Analysis

1. Brand name analysis

1.1 English name: Coca-Cola, also known as Coke

1.2 Origin of the English name

The name was inspired by the two ingredients of the syrup.

The two ingredients are coca leaves and kola fruits.

The K in Kola was changed to C, and a horizontal line was added between the two words, and thus Coca-Cola was born.

1.3 History of changes in Chinese names

The early translation of Coca-Cola in China was "蝌蚪咬蜡", but due to poor sales, it was later changed to "Coca-Cola".

1.4 Analysis of the Chinese name “Coca-Cola”

• Style benchmark: epic and moving, remarkable
• Naming advantages: It can bring about a happy emotional benefit connection. The word "kou" can bring about a category connection with catering, and at the same time it conforms to the Chinese people's emotional attitude of "good luck and good fortune".

1.5 Analysis of the English name “Coca-cola”

• Brand keywords: Refreshing
• Root: Coca, cola, which represent the names of ingredients respectively

2. Brand slogan analysis

2.1 History of brand slogan changes

2.2 Comparative analysis of slogans from 2009 to 2016

• 2009: Open Happiness
• 2016: Taste the feeling

Many advertisers feel that the 2009 version of the slogan is significantly better than the 2016 version because it has a more "happy and enthusiastic" feel.

Why is this? There are three reasons for this:

1. Verb perspective:

The word Open is more action-oriented, pointing to the action of “opening the lid”;

2. Lenovo angle:

Happiness has clearer associations, and you can think of all kinds of happy scenes, but the word feeling is a bit vague;

3. Psychological perspective:

Advertising slogans often come from consumers' psychology/values.

"Open happiness" means that happiness can be very simple. All it needs is a can of Coca-Cola, and it is happiness that everyone can enjoy.

In comparison, "taste the feeling" is much weaker in promoting values.

3. Brand story analysis

3.1 Official Introduction

Brand story is a long-term construction and maintenance process, which is reflected in many aspects, such as company introduction, anniversary history promotion, brand story advertising TVC, and brand charity event history.

In the official introduction of Coca-Cola, I found the following information:

A. Coca-Cola official website ( https://www.coca-cola.com/):

In the [Our Company] section, there are several sub-sections:

Mission and vision, brand introduction, brand system, management, brand origin, product original intention, history (brand action history, advertising history)

B. Coca-Cola China official website:

On the [About Us] page, there is the following introduction:

The Coca-Cola Company is a full-category beverage company, and “Refresh the world by making us different” is our original intention.

The Coca-Cola Company provides more than 200 beverage brands in over 200 countries around the world.

In 1886, Coca-Cola was born in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, and now it has a long history of 136 years.

The Coca-Cola Company is committed to making a positive impact on people's lives, communities and the planet, and to promoting sustainable development initiatives around the world.

Coca-Cola China

Since returning to the Chinese mainland market in 1979, Coca-Cola has been committed to providing Chinese consumers with a rich and diverse beverage selection, including more than 20 brands and about 100 kinds of beverages. The Coca-Cola system has invested a total of US$13 billion in China, built 46 factories, and has more than 49,000 employees, of which 99% are local employees and 98% of raw materials are purchased locally.

All categories of beverages

Currently, Coca-Cola China provides more than 20 brands and about 100 kinds of beverages to Chinese consumers, meeting the diverse drinking needs of Chinese consumers. The company's brands include Coca-Cola, Sprite, Fanta, Minute Maid, Powerful, PureDrink, Sunshine, COSTA, Lemon Road, etc.

Here, care about here

Coca-Cola China adheres to the concept of "Here, Care Here", constantly innovates and forges ahead, cares about consumers' diverse beverage needs, cares about product quality, cares about community development, and cares about environmental symbiosis.

Work together for a win-win future

Looking back over the past 40 years, Coca-Cola has created many unforgettable stories in China. In the future, we will continue to work together to explore, develop and win together.

--about Us

3.2 Deconstruction of Brand Story Elements

• Brand story type: Dynamic story-milestone event
• Creative approach: Use typical stories that occur during the brand development process to create
• Typical expression: Looking forward to the past and forging ahead into the future

130 years ago, an American pharmacist mixed the first cup of Coca-Cola

1886 Coca-Cola first introduced free drink coupons

In 1891, Coca-Cola used hand-painted calendars for advertising.

In 2016, Coca-Cola launched "Taste the Feeling" globally

——Brand introduction released for the 130th anniversary

04 Experience

1. The naming can start with the material of the product itself , and people should know the function of the material at a glance. For example, Coca and Cola have the association of refreshing.

2. Verbs in brand advertisements should be action-oriented . For example, for Coke, "Open" is more sales-oriented than "Taste".

3. Starting from the brand pyramid model, after sorting out the emotional interest points, these emotional interest points should be implemented in the naming and slogan:

For example, the emotional benefit of Coca-Cola is that everyone can enjoy happiness, so the Chinese name "蝌蚪咬蜡" would definitely be lame, and it would be much better to change it to "柯克乐"

Slogan: "Open Happiness" will be more happiness-oriented than the slogan "Taste the feeling";

4. The brand story is not a separate introduction page . It must first be integrated into the company introduction section of the official website.

It can be broken down into separate sections on various aspects such as mission and vision, corporate leadership, brand history, product system, brand origin, and product original intention.

5. For brands with a long history, you can refer to the milestone dynamic brand story line expression method of "Coca-Cola".

Every year there are different brand stories to tell.

Interestingly, Coca-Cola includes their advertising history as part of their brand history.

Indeed, advertising is also part of brand assets.

They also produced a handbook on the brand's advertising history --

6. Before building the brand text system, the most important thing is to have a clear brand positioning.

Please refer to the brand concept system introduction of Coca-Cola official website:

Author: Ye Ma Fan, WeChat public account: Ye Ma Fan