For a supposedly savvy global brand, it seems to have taken Coke a long time to wake up to social media as a way of stimulating dialogue. Their Expedition 206 initiative will send three ‘Ambassadors’ in 2010 to 206 countries where Coke is sold. They will be armed with all the required technology to social media their journey to the max (or is that Pepsi?).
Anyway, on the upside, it would appear that the project has united the PR, Communications and Marketing teams at Coke. Great news – it just seems a little surprising that for such a global brand, these three departments haven’t been fully engaged in communication with each other before now. I’m also interested to know how the three differ in their roles.
Judging by comments on the article, the apparent downside may be that the ’social’ has been lost in the desire to tap into the ‘media’ . Clearly it’s early days, and it will depend on the people skills of the Ambassadors, but social media is about dialogue. To take a theoretical prespective, social media is arguably the easiest way to achieve Grunig and Hunt’s 2-way symmetrical communications nirvana, where dialogue positively alters the behaviours and understanding of both the target audience and the organisation. The Explore 206 project will be an interesting experiment, but Coke needs to be careful that the Ambassadors don’t simply become Agents in a one-way sales process dressed up as two-way social media dialogue.
