Consumer Generated Media Edit

The Coca Cola Challenge
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It seems Coke has learned a thing or two about the need to embrace the consumer generated phenomenon. After the initial Coke/Mentos videos ‘debacle’, when Coke took the high ground saying that they wanted people to drink Coke, not play with it and then introduced a lame contest, encouraging people to submit videos that aligned with the company’s new tagline, “The essence of you.”. No surprises, that was roundly ignored. Now, they’re getting there – partnering with Fritz Grobe and Stephen Voltz, the two unknowns that previously hijacked the brand, and have just launched a new competition that gets people to consider how ordinary objects can do extraordinary things – there are some pretty impressive prizes for budding directors – but is it a little too late to embrace the trend?  Didn’t Mentos do this back in July? And didn’t their contest at least encourage sales of Mentos and Diet Coke….