Coca-Cola Marketing Communication

Coca-Cola Marketing Communication


1. Determine the nature of the problem and identify the product batch involved.

A problem of production has occurred in a Spanish factory plant in Madrid. The Coca-Cola Enterprise (CCE) sold and delivered a defect shipment of 1.5L Diet-Coke bottles for the Spanish market. On the 7 November 2002, the first complaint was registered by a commercialsituated in Valencia. In fact, the soda bottles seem to pop open spontaneously inside the store because of warm conditions. (Natural hot weather in addition with bad air-conditioned shops)

The problem comes from of the quantity of carbonating gas used in the production of the drink. The product was manufactured with too much of this gas added. However, it’s not dangerous for the health. In the worstcase scenario, customers could be surprised to see half of the content spill out of the bottle when opening one.

This human mistake took place when adjusting the production process of 1.5L plastic Diet-Coke bottles and did not affect any of the other products manufactured by the Spanish CCE. So the damage was limited to just one production line, and due to the limited consequences (this can onlybe noticed at opening a bottle) a few days of production took place before anybody reported this mishap.

Batch-numbers
NOV2201NOA, NOV2202NOD and NOV2201NOE

Separate bottles can be identified by their barcodes
712800-001164 and 712900-001978

The production facility involved
Coca-Cola Bottling Co., MADRID Coca-Cola Enterprises Bottler SPAIN

Distribution area of the batch
Thewhole country of Spain. We estimate that all of our distributors and 43% of all stores have received one or more pallets with this product.

Quantity of the batch affected by this problem
1.2 million Bottles where produced. Placed in 150000 crates that where put on 12500 pellets for shipment.






2. Recall product and inform retailers. Inform the Health Ministry and the ConsumersAssociation.

The Manufacturer has recalled by faxed memo on 8/11/02 the entire product affected. Even if this damage isn’t dangerous for the health, Coca-Cola Company have inform about the defect their customers (retailers, hyper and super markets) but also the Spanish health ministry and consumers association like:

• CCyV -Confederaciòn de Consumidores y Vecinos (confederation of consumers andneighbours)
• FUCI -Federaciòn de Usuarios-Consumidores Independientes.
• FDA-The Food and Drug Administration (Besides, Questions concerning this recall may be directed to the FDA at 1-888-INFO-FDA.

Furthermore, in order to have the maximum recall possible, a letter to press agencies (will be done or have been done). The main goal of this official press release is to diffuse the news all overthe Spain to avoid worry the Coca-Cola consumers and show that there are no consequences on the health.

3. Make an official Press Release => Invite reporters for a meeting; write emails or letters to press agencies.

Press release

9th November 2002

A Spanish factory plant in Madrid sold a bad shipment of soda bottles to the Spanish market estimated at 1.2 million bottles.

Thequantity affected concerns Diet-Coke; they have accidentally put too much gas inside their bottles. It’s due to an error of production by the employees of the Coca-Cola factory.

Coca-Cola has registered the first complaint on the 7 November 2002, it means two days ago. Indeed, because of this human mistake, the soda bottles may open spontaneously in a warm atmosphere, high temperatures or badair-conditioned shops.

After a research of the health ministry, it has been demonstrated that drinks affected are definitely not dangerous for the health. Nevertheless, with this scenario, customers, retailers and supermarkets could be surprised to see half of the content spill out of the bottles.

So we ask at every Coca-Cola consumer or buyer to check by means of the bar code on the products...