Coca Cola actually have to run ads to stay relevant. War in Ukraine provided nice experiment - Coca Cola stopped all advertisement in Russia in 2022 and results are in.
- Feb–Mar 2022 (before full production/marketing stoppage): RosIndex reported that 94.3% knew the Coca-Cola brand.
- 2023 (roughly a year after global brands stopped producing in Russia): 88.6% of consumers knew the Coca-Cola brand.
5.7% drop in recognition in one year translates to billions of losses if scaled to US market. So yes, Coca Cola has to constantly run ads.
I have follow-up questions but they'll be much better if there's a source we can talk around.
Literally the first result of a google search for
"RosIndex" coca cola brand recognition in russia
returns this thread... I get 3 results... The next is a PDF (CANnual Report) that mentions "rosindex" but around 2016 and nothing about coke and then just a slideshare. Even the LLMs are returning this thread as the source.
So I have questions, but can we start with the source?
This is hard to believe without an underlying theory of what's happening. Did teens not know about Coca Cola and are now part of the survey? Was there rural to urban migration?
If Coca-Cola both stopped advertising and stopped officially selling their products (and permitting their import) in the region, then this doesn't prove what you claim it does. Disentangle the two things, and then we can draw some conclusions.
Coca Cola stopped officially selling in Russia but Coca Cola products are widely available due to grey import from other countries (it's present in literally every store - though prices are higher than for local brands).
- Feb–Mar 2022 (before full production/marketing stoppage): RosIndex reported that 94.3% knew the Coca-Cola brand.
- 2023 (roughly a year after global brands stopped producing in Russia): 88.6% of consumers knew the Coca-Cola brand.
5.7% drop in recognition in one year translates to billions of losses if scaled to US market. So yes, Coca Cola has to constantly run ads.