Coca-Cola gets a Second Life in the Caribbean
The highlight of the site is a virtual city for Caribbean teenagers called
Caribbean Connection. The idea borrows from the Second Life concept, where you can go into the virtual world, interact with others, participate in activities, and create “a life”. In Caribbean Connection, you can design your own avatar, rent an apartment, meet people at the beach, play a game of football, or mix some music. These kinds of activates can be done by acquiring “bucks”, the city’s virtual currency, which are collected by winning games inside the city and in the near future by participating in the Coca-Cola promotions and activities.According to Coca-Cola’s Public Affairs and Communications Manager for the Caribbean, Roger Williams:
“This platform is interactive and reflects the brand’s commitment to offering teens unique and innovative experiences according to their preference, be it music, fashion, sports, entertainment or just wholesome fun on the internet”.
I’m sorry to burst Coca-Cola’s bubble, but the reality is that if you want to use the word unique, you better by golly wow make sure it’s unique. The whole Caribbean Connection is similar to Second Life, which gives people an access to the virtual world with millions of people to interact with. Additionally, if you’re on the net, you’ve also got to be aware that you’ve got a multiplicity of entertainment avenues competing for the attention of internet users, and this includes teenagers. Since its start in 2003, Second Life has grown explosively, with 5,078,487 people from around the globe and an average of 20-35,000 people signing in daily. Companies are even going into Second Life to conduct marketing campaigns there.
I came to find out about Coca-Cola’s youth website through a release in the local newspapers, and what I found most interesting about this was how they started it:
“Today’s teens have constant access to technology and information. To them, the world has become a small place, with no boundaries, where they experience new connections, places, cultures and friends.”
Sounds nice, doesn’t it? But do teens even this way? Yes, they check their email, go on hi5, read entertainment news, and download music, but do they think the world is small and they can experience new adventures online? Do they even go into such analytics of their life or attempt to intellectualise their behaviour? Or do they prefer connecting to real life? That’s the challenge for connecting with Caribbean youth online. Find a way to connect it to real life, and get them on the website and to participate, and then get them to connect online experiences to real life behaviour. In Coca-Cola’s case, get them to buy coke. Lol. Sorry Coca-Cola couldn’t help that one.
I joined Caribbean Connection today, and the system told me I was in a world with two people. Wow, that’s like being on a deserted island! So, how does Coca-Cola get Caribbean teenagers to really log on, and participate? They need to come up with some really innovative ways to engage them. It’s great that Coca-Cola is trying to engage youth online, but we’ve got to also think about things like, how many teenagers are online, what kind of teenager is going to take the time to navigate the virtual world, and the attention span of teenagers. Remember, we need to give a much bigger wow effect to teenagers. Things that may have wowed me in my teen years may now reduce a teenager to a yawn. For marketers in the Caribbean, we’ve got to not only tap into teenager’s minds, we’ve also got to tap into the Caribbean mind. In the midst of the deep Americanisation of our cultures, we must also remember that underneath it all is a Caribbean identity (as unclear as it might be to adolescents), and conditions – such as access to Internet, broadband (important for virtual games), and preference for traditional media – which impact our ability to receive communication online.
By the way, if you log onto Caribbean Connection, my name is Klucy.
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well yeah… not too many people there at all… in fact its just me, Dolomite (well back to Second Life)