Why can't half-baked cola launch campaigns come with zero sackings?

The Australian media seems to have finally caught a whiff of the not-quite-right pong emanating from The Zero Movement HQ. According to their blog, the marketing mag B&T will be running a story on The Zero Movement (and the subsequent backlash) in their next issue.

But of even greater interest was this little snippet of info that appeared in today’s Crikey subscribers mailout. (For non-Australians or non-media/politics-types out there, Crikey is to Down Under what the Drudge Report is to the US: good reporting and industry gossip that more often than not hits the mark). According to an anonymous informer at Coca-Cola:

The launch of Coke Zero is causing major problems within Coke. We started with a viral teaser campaign called the zero movement which has totally backfired – consumer backlash may cost the PR firm and the marketing personnel responsible dearly. All you have to do is Google it to find all the reactions. Also the trade is lukewarm to the product after the disaster of Coke Lime and also after finding out Coke Zero failed in the US. We have forcibly allocated massive amounts of stock (supermarkets say too much) and there are some nervous store managers out there. We are also scared that our marketing dept and ad agencies have lost the plot after a string of below average ads and terrible program sponsorship decisions (eg X factor). There is no confidence that the Zero launch will get any better. And forward orders for regular Coke and Diet Coke are more than 50% down leading alot of us to believe that we are just going to cannabilise our own sales, instead of going after Pepsi who are doing very well at the moment stealing our share with great advertising but Coke head office does nothing!

Many thanks to the Crikey subscriber who tipped us off about this tidbit via email at thezeromovementsucks@gmail.com. (We're lowly squatters ourselves, but are desperately saving up for a full-blown subscription, promise!) If you see any other references to Coke Zero in the media, or you work at Coke or one its agencies and want to unburden yourself of gossip, support or venom, drop us a line! We'd love to hear from you.

If you buy Coke Zero, you're not just a pathetic loser, you're a pathetic loser in denial

Great article in The Age on the new trend of big multi-nationals employing guerilla tactics their attempts at appealing to to Gen Y "neos". What caught our eye was this spot-on tidbit:

Ron Barnacle, chairman of one of Melbourne's largest advertising agencies, CHE, agrees the days of mass-marketing campaigns are over. Research conducted for CHE last year found that 87 per cent of young people surveyed said they wanted to be different - but not so different that they stood out and didn't belong.

In other words, big corporations and their ad agencies want to help all the soul dead, 9-to-5 working, house-deposit-saving, boat-shoe wearing, Country Road addicted sheep of the world feel like the renegade, socially-aware pioneers of the counter-culture they so desperately aspire to be ... just so long as they don't have to delete the Celine Dion Greatest Hits collection from their iPods. These guys use green enviro bags (they're a bit dorky, but at least everyone's doing it now so that's OK), or donate some change to those whacky Greenpeace dudes (those poor whales!) and perhaps, if they're feeling really rebellious, go out and buy a Green Day album (man, those guys are so crazy with their green hair and rock guitars and controversy and stuff).

But try asking the same 'neos' to stop buying Coke in response to gross human rights violations in Colombia or environmental and public health catastrophes in India. Or to pass on the latest Nikes because you'd rather have your shoes made by somebody who'd at least hit puberty, or wasn't being beaten up at work. Suddenly the 20-40 year old target market that try to read street press (but think it's a little too hardcore) and will only spike their hair if they get to use a $20 bottle of Garnier Fructis product is a little more coy. "We can't save the world." "One pair of Nikes won't matter." "I'm not some kind of crazy Commie or anything like that."

But they might buy into the Coke Zero campaign, because it provides a sanitized notion of rebellious cred that only a slick, multi-million dollar advertising blitz could produce. It's rebellion without the effort. Activism without a cause. Anti-establishmentarianism without the smelly hippies. Counter-culture without the culture.

Every time you don your $80 Che Guevera t-shirt and pick up a Coke Zero not only will everybody watching know that you're a sugar-fearing sissy who doesn't want to look like one, but that you're also a lifeless shill who not only knows you'll spend the rest of your life in Caroline Springs or Springfield Lakes, but that you're relying on a black bottle of Aspartame to convince the world, and yourself, otherwise.

Now that's sad.

How many ad agencies does it take to patronise a demographic?

Only one, apparently

Have you seen the The Zero Movement? The blog of a group of activists who aims to to "rid the world of all the negative consequences that limit us all"[1]. If you believe their slick website, they want you to help them solve the world's biggest crises, namely: "Why can't new years come with zero resolutions?"[2] and "Why don't women consider everything small "soooooo cute"?" [3].

Yes, earth shattering stuff.

In care you hadn't sniffed a lame marketing attempt two miles away, a check of their domain's ownership details shows that the whole thing is owned by Coca Cola South Pacific (see the screen grab below).

The Zero Movement, it would seem, is the launch campaign for Coca Cola's latest offering, Coke Zero, a product designed to appeal to the male 'yoof' demographic who avoid Coca Cola because of its dangerously high sugar content, but don't want to look like Diet Coke swilling sissies.

So why are we bothering to point this out to the world? After all, guerilla marketing and multinationals posing as rebellious groups is by no means a new tactic, just check out the latest rash of campaigns for Sony and Microsoft's games consoles. In fact this kind of advertising has almost become a trademark of uncreative advertising agencies desperate to gain cut-through to an increasingly apathetic market.

"If we look cool and act like a fringe outfit that deserves their respect," you can see the agency's Creative Director's pitch to Coca Cola's marketing team going, "maybe they'll give it to us!"

"What's cool among the kids these days?" he booms to the market researcher.

"Um, well," market research gimp stammers while consulting the latest Sputnik or Look-Look report."Well, blogs, and stuff. Like graffiti. And rebellion. And sticking it to the, you know, man."

"Well let's do a bit of all of that! Let's have a blog, do some graffiti and write about how provocative we are."

But in co-opting the trademarks of the counter-culture--blogs, street art and a passionate cause--to promote an artifically sweetened cocktail of chemicals and flavourings, Coca Cola is demeaning its target market. We don't want an ad agency forming our life philosophy. We don't want a group of soft drink executives trying to tell us how to live our lives. We just want Coca Cola to 'fess up to the fact that it's a profit-driven multinational whose only interest in culture change is the carefully researched chord it might strike into its consumer base.

Coca Cola, welcome to the underground. As others have found out, it's not always comfortable.