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The real joys of the season are not to be found at Best Buy and Amazon. They are in the random acts of kindness or merriment we see along the way.
Every year, we jump into overdrive in the weeks after thanksgiving, shopping like crazy for family and friends, trying to beat the lines, get the perfect gifts, the deals, and get it all done. Sometimes to the point that we’re stressed, exhausted, and overwhelmed.
Then something wonderful happens.
Something that makes you stop and smile. Like walking up 5th avenue, and seeing two random guys take the microphone from a Salvation Army volunteer, and start singing Christmas carols in harmony. Or giving something away you don’t need, to someone who does. Saying ‘yes’ to the people asking for money- and giving more than they asked for. Giving back, in random ways, gives you more than you can ever imagine.
On the news this morning, there was a story about a ‘secret Santa’ who’s traveling around the country paying off people’s Christmas layaway plans at Kmart and Toys-R-us, especially the ones that had late payments or would be forfeited due to a lack of payments. When one woman encountered her benefactor, and cried in joy, ‘what can I do for you?’, he said, ‘just do the same for someone else’. Is this a single benefactor? Is it a movement? Who knows? It doesn’t matter. It’s just wonderful. In a time of such high unemployment, such struggle with so many things in the world, and people just trying to get by and create some delight for their family, this story is an inspiration.
Let’s do more of that.
Do something wonderful.
The marketers at Coca Cola seem to have forgotten one of the simplest principles of branding, with the recent “Save the Polar Bear” campaign.
Coca Cola's new can creates a controversy for confused consumers
Shoppers are visual. Our recognition of products is registered in the milliseconds we spend scanning the shelves for what we want. We do not stop to read or examine the things we buy often. We look for what’s familiar, pick it up, and go.
That’s exactly how I ended up drinking about 75 calories worth of a regular coke at lunch, before I got suspicious about the strange taste, looked more closely, and realized the word “diet” was missing. Turns out, lots of people had the same experience. According to the Wall Street Journal, Coca Cola’s response was that the white cans were distinctively different from the silver diet cans.
“Coke says it hasn’t tweaked the taste of its cola and that protecting polar bears is a worthwhile initiative. It recently added a “fact sheet” on its website highlighting how white Coke cans are distinct from silver Diet Coke cans. Among the differences: Regular Coke is labeled “Coca-Cola” and states the calories at the front of the can, while Diet Coke’s holiday can—silver as always—is labeled “Diet Coke” and features snowflakes.” – WSL 12.1.11
Let’s just agree that saving the polar bears is a right and good thing. But Coca Cola, changing the brand identity is confusing and distressing for consumers who feel duped, or annoyed at drinking needless calories. I’d like to have believed after the New Coke flub of 1985, they would have the institutional memory to be cautious about changing the brand too dramatically. Sadly, no.
Coca Cola has a website, Coca Cola Artic Home, dedicated to the Polar Bears, replete with geo-trackers, so you can choose a “virtual parcel” to donate to. It’s a lovely effort, and Coca Cola should be celebrated. But, folks, how did they lose sight of the fact that the people who buy coke and diet coke would be confused? The white can they designed to celebrate the polar bears looks almost identical to the silver diet can. The explanation that the silver is distinct is a clear case of snow-blindness. Perhaps they were too deep in the the artic blizzard to see it.
Tropicana did something similar a few years ago- they decided the brand was looking stale, so they updated the carton so dramatically that it was unrecognizable. They thought it should be more modern, clean, and elegant. The result was so clean that it looked like a generic. And those of us who were Tropicana customers walked right by it looking for the carton with the orange on it. Major brand flub.
There’s been huge consumer uproar about the white can, and Coca Cola has responded by saying that the red cans will be back on the shelves by Christmas.
A brand marketing guy I used to work with used to say, “Fall on your face, not on your ass”, to encourage risk taking on big ideas. I’m not sure which way Coca Cola fell on this one, but it appears that the lesson is learned. At least for now.
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