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.

Live Positively, Coca-Cola's Community Relations Website

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.

How it works!

Corperate Public Relations & Coca-Cola: An Introduction

This blog is an analysis of the corporate public relations initiatives of the Coca-Cola Bottling Company. The analysis is intended to explore both the effective and ineffective corporate campaigns the Coca-Cola Company has explored, experimented with and executed; while analyzing the effects these various campaigns have had on the company, employees, consumers, and environment.

The Coca-Cola company's complete mission statement can be viewed HERE. Quite simply, the mission statement is:
"To refresh the world...To inspire moments of optimism and happiness... and to create value and make a difference." (taken from the Official Coca-Cola site)

This mission clearly described a company that is dedicated to the well-being of its consumers, employees, and environment. This mission statement seems to holds Coca-Cola to a very high standard, yet seems vague when it is first read. After reading Coca-Cola's mission statement, I was intrigue as to what makes a good/effective mission statement. I found my answer here. A mission statement translates a company's goals to the world and how it wants to make a difference. A unique feature of the Coca-Cola website is that it breaks down the mission statement and describes each part very descriptively and even gives examples of the initiatives the company takes to ensure the mission statement is fulfilled. The breakdown of the company's mission, goals and vision are found in easy bullet form here. This format to describe the company's vision makes it easy to inform and educate the public about the direction in which the company does and directs its business and defines its involvement in the environment (meaning the national/international community as well as the actual natural environment).

This blog will evaluate Coca-Cola's public relations efforts and compare that to interpretations of the company's mission statement.

One interesting thing about Coca-Cola's mission statement is that it emphasizes looking towards the future in order to foresee changes in trends, styles, and needs of the consumers. This is called Coca-Cola's "20/20 Vision." As a public relations practitioner it is imperative to look to the future and predict changes a company must make to adapt to a changing world. If changes were not observed and PR research was not done to develop changes in PR campaigns, a company's outreach to consumers, employees, environment would become ineffective or not to its potential. This is why the stress Coca-cola puts on its "20/20 Vision" is a essential component to its PR effort.

Concerns that the public relations department of the Coca-Cola Company may face can be separated into two categories: the environment and human health concerns relating to the consumption of the product. In order to counter these problems and stay committed to the Company's mission statement, Coca-Cola must execute effective public relations campaigns addressing problems that face the company. This not only minimizes negative attitudes towards the company based on environmental and health concerns, but also boosts the company's reputation because the company is taking initiative to address the negative aspects and problems the company may produce.

As a merchandiser for Coca-Cola for the past two summers, I have become intrigued by the Coca-Cola bottling company's effort to strive for quality control, product recognition, and consumor relations which is why I chose to evaluate Coca-Cola's public relations effort.

As arguably the number one trademark in the entire world, Coca-Cola's beverages and products are spread throughout every continent in an effort to "refresh the world." The Coca-Cola Company's international business example is very attractive to a student such as myself considering I am a public relations and Spanish double-major with an aspiration to contribute to the global economy and to apply my career skills to the international forum.