COCA COLA Ido Lotan , CEO of Ruach Tova, speaks with Harel Chaikin , CEO of the Marketing arm for The Central Bottling Company, about volunteering, corporate responsibility, and the WOW Tour campaign
I do: The collaboration between us started with marketing at Coca-Cola, which is highly unusual. We usually meet with the Corporate Responsibility Director or the Welfare Department. So what stands behind Coca-Cola's social perception of volunteering as a leading value? Harel: We searched for something that would affect people beyond the business aspect. When it comes to Coca-Cola, the younger generations’ expectation is that the brand will have an additional contribution to the world beyond conducting business. We concluded that the moment you make someone volunteer, something behavioral happens. This is especially evident with teenagers in particular; volunteering changes their perception. We held lengthy discussions, we searched for all kinds of personal empowerment programs, we considered opening workshops. Finally, we came to the conclusion that we should not be a brand that tells you what is right. And that's how we defined our statement - instead of being a larger-than-life brand, we will be a brand that is part of life, which is a huge change in perception. We want to be a part of your life. We want to be a part of causing you to do something positive in your life. What we also recognized was that teenagers do not know how to volunteer, beyond the monthly hour at school or in a youth movement.
Volunteering is seen as a spreadsheet to be filled or a chore, which is how they then treat the activity accordingly. Volunteering has barriers of time, place, and connection to the sector. We realized that we can be the bridging factor between the world of volunteering and our consumers and be a catalyst for volunteering. We realized that if we succeed in building something that will grow, we will succeed in creating a change. We also saw that if we got one person to volunteer, he brought one of his friends along and that's how it spread from person to person. This was the motivating factor - to cause a shift in paradigm, to create a better environment. Although there are many entities which are involved in such action, we said that Coca-Cola should go for it. Ido: Can you briefly describe the idea behind WOW Tour and how it worked? Harel: Coca-Cola is a life concept of fun, freedom, and enjoyment. We wanted to connect this equation to volunteering. Coca-Cola = Fun = Volunteering. If Coca-Cola promotes volunteering, it repositions the branding of volunteering, not only around ideology, but also around the value of enjoyment. With the new equation: Coca-Cola is fun, so volunteering is fun. We set off. We initiated a purely voluntary project, one completely separate from the purchase of products, in
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