My understanding of the magi can promotion was that it was a new and innovative way of promotion by Coca Cola which should have brought in more fans but instead created a negative perception towards its product and attracted bad publicity towards its campaign. It was bold on Coca Cola’s part to go ahead with such a costly advert but what it failed to do was make the necessary corrections to its campaign during its test marketing phase where the company decided to go ahead with the full blown promotion in spite of the mechanism failure rate’s. Also compounding the problem was the mismatch in the number of cans that had the money versus the ones that did not have it. Its competitor Pepsi took a far simple yet similar style approach towards its promotion where instead of a mechanism to give money the cans had at the bottom a number that corresponded to a winning amount. Coca Cola should have taken the feedback its test customers gave seriously and make the necessary changes but being the first to try such a form of marketing there was bound to be some issues but later on the same principle was adopted by other firms in a much simple format that was still appealing.
Do you think longer test marketing should be done with promotions like magi cans?
Ans According to me Coca-Cola had conducted a test marketing campaign for their magi cans in Iowa & Illinois for 3 months and therefore there was no need for extending it as they had identified potential problems in the application of the device. They should have gone back and reworked on the device based on initial feedback and then relaunch it.
What consumer behavior principles should Coke have considered before launch?
Ans Coca Cola should have considered the psychological aspects of the consumer because the consumer is under the impression they will win something that is tangible has value to it. The campaign and the subsequent magi can was totally mismatched in its reach to the