Monday, October 26, 2009

Coca-Cola Community Relations - My Coke Rewards!

What Coca-Cola is doing for communities across the country is a continuous campaign that enables communities to become engaged in both the company and their respective communities.
What it is: My Coke Rewards for Schools.
• My Coke Rewards for Schools is a way for parents, friends, and others in the community to support local K-12 schools by donating My Coke Rewards points which can be earned from hundreds of participating Coca-Cola products. Schools can turn donated points into a variety of rewards that support students.
• The coke points can provide local schools with things like athletic equipment, books, classroom supplies and more.
• Schools must register to participate in the program, and any My Coke Rewards member can donate points to registered schools.
• People donate their My Coke Rewards points and empower students to do, learn and discover more every day.

Coca Cola’s focus:
• To provide children with opportunities in school by enabling their communities to literally cash in their cans.
• To better communities and schools where budgets may be tight
• Encourage brand recognition and reputation in communities
• To encourage community involvement and community building

How it relates to Coca-Cola's line of business:
• Part of Coca-Cola's mission statement is “To create value and make a difference.” & “Inspire creativity, passion, optimism and fun”
• Coca-Cola offers this program to any community that is willing to take the initiative. Coca-Cola offers the support and resources but leaves the initiative to the communities.
• For the company, it encourages product consumption.
• Coke Rewards motivates the consumption because of the return consumers and communities are able to benefit from.




How does the program enhance the company’s reputation?
• This program is on-going
• “Let's double up for schools: Help boost your school's balance. We'll match every point donated during October. Together, we can help schools get the equipment, supplies, and books they need even faster.” For every point that a consumer donates to their community, Coca-Cola matches their donation, thus doubling the donation the consumer submits to the My Coke Rewards website.

This is good community relations for Coca-Cola because it is on-going, enables people to become involved in both the Coca-Cola company and their communities, and the benefits that communities experience from this program are visible to both involved communities and those who are interested in participating. I believe that this is not only a great opportunity for communities to interact with Coca-Cola for educational rewards, but also for Coca-Cola to boost their reputation by branding their name on a community relations program. My Coke Rewards, in the most simple sense, enables schools to turn their cans into books, sports equipment, musical instruments, etc.

This public relations is also good because it is ongoing. People are able to participate at any given time and their is no restrictions on who can participate.

Other things that the Coca-Cola company could also do would be provide more community based scholarship funds through the usage of My Coke Rewards. For instance, if a college bound kid was in need of a scholarship perhaps My Coke Rewards could create an incentive program where the rewards points went towards a community based fund which allowed for more scholarships to be awarded in that particular community.

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