Coca-Cola Plans To Resume Advertising On Traditional Mediums

Coca-Cola India, which was focusing on digital during the lockdown, will slowly turn to all mediums for promotion and advertising as normalcy returns.

Vijay Parasuraman, Vice-President, Marketing, Coca-Cola India, and SouthWest Asia, said, “We will start being on traditional mediums as well in the coming few weeks. We will keep tracking the eyeballs, and where they are sticky, we will efficiently invest the spending for the entire portfolio.”

During the crisis, the company’s contribution and split between sparkling drinks, juices, and carbonated drinks remained the same. As people remained locked inside, the consumption trend shifted from ‘away from home’ to ‘at home’. The company is creating affordable versions of the existing products to accelerate at-home consumption while giving more attention to the grocery channel and creating more relevance for its portfolio.

Presently all of its manufacturing plants are running based on geographical demand. Its grocery channel is 100% operational for at-home demand. Away from home will be more operational as outlets open up.

Talking about this split change, T. Krishnakumar, President, Coca-Cola India, and Southwest Asia, said ‘out-of-home’ consumption pretty much went down from March to April. It started to revive from June but the salience very much shifted to ‘at home’. He also mentioned how the biggest capability-building or scaling up the company has done during Covid-19 times is—first, the ability to work virtually and secondly, to quickly scale up presence in e-commerce while trying to replicate it’s brick and mortar expansion.

Talking about Coca-Cola’s advertising plans during the Indian Premier League and the on-ground partnership with ICC, Parasuraman said, “We continue to stay invested in cricket and it is not a short-term but a long-term strategy for us. In terms of IPL, we have partnerships with five teams on the ground and we continue to work with them as things evolve. In terms of advertising in IPL, we will have to see how things unfold, there is no decision yet.”