Miserable failure? Try C2 on search

[Nacho]

Sometimes the way I get my news is thanks to my trusty Google Alert for "search engine marketing". Today I spotted an article that I believe reflects reality of how the Big Brand world is lost in our search market.

The article is titled, "C2 Product Launch: How Coke Failed to Integrate Search (http://www.mediapost.com/dtls_dsp_news.cfm?newsID=255499)" by Ron Belanger on Wednesday, June 16, 2004.

In summary, it talks about how Coke spent mucho dinero - by no surprise - on the launch of their of newest product C2 to please the low-carb consumers. They did just about everything on the Internet except one of the most important elements: search engine marketing. :eek:

Sure enough, I’ve tried my searches for: low carb Coke, c2 coke, and a few others on the main engines. Keep in mind this is after 2 weeks of their launch . . . not good! Common Coke guys, you need to think faster than that, try at least 3 - 6 months faster.

If you haven't read it, I highly recommend, if you have then feel welcome to discuss it here.

[Dodger]

Interesting enough though, the tech preview of MSN Search is dead on for one term. Search for c2 coke (http://techpreview.search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=C2+Coke&FORM=SMCRT), but not low carb coke (http://techpreview.search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=low+carb+coke&FORM=SMCRT). Interesting enough also is the search term for the Pepsi product Pepsi Edge (http://techpreview.search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=pepsi+edge&FORM=SMCRT) who has a new domain for it too. This is a mid carb Pepsi (http://techpreview.search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=mid+carb+pepsi&FORM=SMCRT) by the way, which has more carbs than Ultra carb Michelob (http://techpreview.search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=Ultra+carb+Michelob&FORM=SMCRT).

The carb term is very difficult to rank for, so it does not surprise me that some of the diet sites are scoring well with that term. But not to score with your own brand name is a sin ... isn't it???

[Nacho]

But not to score with your own brand name is a sin ... isn't it???
When you have the marketing funds these guys have . . . Oh yeah a BIG sin!

[Dodger]

When you have the marketing funds these guys have . . . Oh yeah a BIG sin!

I think they are heavily promoting the term Coca Cola and not so much the term Coke. But there could be a reason for that -- it is a Mormon owned Company and elusions to the term "coke" (as in the drug) may not be in their agenda.

While that may not be a smart marketing move, it may be a conscientious one. There is a lot of paraphanalia, spoofs, and satirical promotion of cocaine products (apparel for instance) using the Coca-Cola logo style of writing in existance and as far as I know, it is still being used. They may be trying to distance themselves from that connection in the online world and maybe print as well.

Coca Cola C2 is working ... but they lose on Coke C2 if you call that losing. They may think of it in a different light.

[Terry Plank]

Good point, Dodger. A strategy can really only be evaluated from the inside. It's easy to assume that others have the same prioritizing as we ourselves do.

[Nacho]

They may be trying to distance themselves from that connection in the online world and maybe print as well.

IMO, I really don't think this an excuse to stay away from search engine marketing. They're smart, but I think this is ignorance, specially when a PPC campaign could be a drop in the bucket for them.

Marketing was a lot different when Sergio Zyman was running the show.

[Dodger]

FLASH: They now have C2 (http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient-menuext&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=C2) and coke C2 (http://www.google.com/search?num=50&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&c2coff=1&q=coke+C2) on Google, but still down on low carb coke (http://www.google.com/search?num=50&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&c2coff=1&q=low+carb+coke). Yahoo results slightly different, they are scoring on coke c2 (http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=coke+c2&ei=UTF-8&fr=my_top&n=100&fl=0&x=wrt) and low carb coke (http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=low+carb+coke&ei=UTF-8&fr=my_top&n=100&fl=0&x=wrt) only.

Actually just type in Coke (http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=coke). Duh :eek:

[Dodger]

IMO, I really don't think this an excuse to stay away from search engine marketing. They're smart, but I think this is ignorance, specially when a PPC campaign could be a drop in the bucket for them.

That would be true, PPC would have been easy enough to do for them.

I got to looking at the article and it made a reference to the "buzz" that occurs after roadblock ads and how online searches go up because of it. It referenced the top 50 at Lycos, but the "buzz" for Coke C2 was not there. I checked the archives too, the last time Coca Cola appeared there was in 2002 and it was part of a Top Ten sodas survey.

It then says:

This is where Coke made a serious marketing blunder: It was absolutely invisible in search.

Okay this guy is doing the same thing that the reporter did when he was Googling for that CNN Anti-American (or was is the BBC) and used it to support an article he wrote. This writer looks at Top 50 Lycos and does not see Coke and says it is invisible to search. How did he arrive at that conclusion? It tells me that they did not create the "buzz" that he was talking about in the first place -- therefore nobody would be searching for it.

I did not personally see the ads, don't remember seeng them at Yahoo even. So maybe the ads just plain stunk and nobody else noticed them either. I think the author probably should have been writing about the lack of the "buzz" effect with the ads, they were probably not up to snuff to begin with. That was the beginning of the online campaign right there, and the end of it.

The good thing about having a PPC campaign in conjuction with that though, is that they would have easily gauged how effective their campaign was (in the search world anyway). That would have been cheap "tracking" for Coca-Cola if anything -- to gauge the "buzz" with.

[orion]

! discuss a possible explanation to the "C2 COKE" problem in http://www.miislita.com/semantics/c-index-6.html

Orion

[Dodger]

! discuss a possible explanation to the "C2 COKE" problem in http://www.miislita.com/semantics/c-index-6.html

Orion

Interesting article. Reads like a page out of a famous thread here at SEW. :D

One problem I am seeing here about this article and the one that got this thread going. They are referring to it as C2 Coke, but the actual name is Coke C2. Both articles are running tests on the wrong name for the product.

Here is another story (http://www.gadgetmadness.com/archives/20040615-coke_c2_coke_at_the_speed_of_light_squared.php) on the marketing behind C2:

Banking that the average Joe doesn't realize the speed of light is "C" (and that C2 is the speed of light squared) Coke's marketing team has named the newest "new" Coke C2, which on Planet LowCarb-247 means 1/2 the sugar and calories.

[orion]

To Dodger:

1. Hi Dodge. True. Coke C2 is right.
2. I wrote the article you may be referring to.
3. We carried out analyzes for Coke C2 as well. Same overall results.
4. Since we did the analysis in FIND ALL mode (testings regardless for sequence) the results hold.

Orion

[Dodger]

3. We carried out analyzes for Coke C2 as well. Same overall results.
4. Since we did the analysis in FIND ALL mode (testings regardless for sequence) the results hold.


Okay, you are in the clear. I retract my statement and go pick on the other guy then. :D

[orion]

Hi Dodger

No problem. I also need to conceed you are right in many sense. Relevancy sometimes (not all the time) is a matter of perception. For example,

1. Irrelevant results are still showing for k1=c2
2. "Relevant" documents for k12=coke c2 are now showing in the top 10.
3. For k12=coke c2, the Coca-Cola company pages for the product occupies positions 4,5 and 6.

For k12=coke c2, positions 1-3 and 7-10 are occupied by pages that one way or the other are "talking about" the product. If we call that relevant content, then, all top 10 results could be classified as relevant for the coke c2 query. Here are the top 10.

1. CarbWire - Coke C2 review (A third-party discussion)
2. CarbWire - Coca-Cola C2 coming this summer (A third-party product discussion)
3 .Coke goes after low-carb biz - May. 25, 2004 (A news article about the product)
4. Coca-Cola C2 (Coca-Cola's info about the product)
5. Coca-Cola C2 (Coca-Cola's info about the product)
6. Coca-Cola - Press Center - Press Release (Coca-Cola's info about the product)
7. Outside the Beltway: Product Reviews: Coke C2 (A third-party product discussion)
8. GadgetMadness: Coke C2 = Coke at the Speed of Light (squared) (A third-party novelties site)
9. GadgetMadness: Coke C2: "One! Two! Three Artifical Sweeteners, A ... (A third-party novelties site)
10. COKE'S C2 FIRES FIRST SHOT IN HALFWAY COLA WARS (A news site)

Depending on viewers' perception of relevancy, things may go either way. My article was only about how query expansion can be used to search in the "right place", thus to improve quality of retrieved results (relevancy). Still the top 10 results above seems to reafirm the central thesis of the MediaPost's article, ie., that the buzz created by others when a product is launched is often used by some to positioning webpages.

Orion

[Dodger]

The current results appear to be better than they were when I had first checked them when the other thread was started. In some sense the article was right to some extent.

But I went to the main site for Coca Cola and came across a media clip for the commercial they produced for the launch of the product. They used the Rolling Stones song "You Can't Always Get What You Want" and showed flashing images of situations in your life when things don't go the right way. Not one image of the product or the name was used for the most part. A couple of glimpses started to appear sublimnally. Then in the last few seconds you get the full-screen shot of the words "until now" and then a shot of the can of cola in all it's glory plus the name. One second or two.

Since the article was bent on getting into the minds of how Coca Cola dropped the ball on Search Engine Marketing, I don't think so. Those roadblock ads were sublimnal messages to plant in the viewers mind to buy the bubbly new product, not to go search for it.