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Coca-Cola Life Coming to U.K.

Coca-Cola Life Coming to U.K.

coca-cola-life-ukCoca-Cola Life will be released in the U.K. in September of this year. This is the first new product release for Coca-Cola in the U.K. in eight years. The last big release was Coke Zero, which debuted in 2006 and was targeted to men seeking a no-calorie alternative to regular Coca-Cola.

Coca-Cola Life will come in a green can, unlike other Coca-Cola and Coke branded products that have featured the Coca-Cola red in some way on all packaging. However, the iconic Coca-Cola logo will be prominently displayed on the Coca-Cola Life label.

Coca-Cola Life is a “middle of the road” option for people who want to reduce their calorie consumption. At 89 calories per 330 ml can, Coca-Cola Life is significantly fewer calories than regular Coca-Cola.

Rebecca Smithers of The Guardian reports that the company is marketing Coca-Cola life not only as a lower calorie alternative to its flagship product but also as a “natural” alternative because Coca-Cola Life is sweetened with a combination of sugar and stevia rather than artificial sweeteners. Stevia sweetener comes from a South American leaf, and it was approved for use in foods in Europe in 2011. It’s already used in a variety of products in the U.K., including Coca-Cola’s Sprite.

Coca-Cola is also promoting Coca-Cola Life as its first new product in support of the U.K. Government’s Responsibility Deal to which the company committed to reducing the average calorie count per liter in its beverage products by 5% by the end of this year. However, health advocacy groups argue that Coca-Cola Life still contains too much sugar (more than four teaspoons of sugar are in one 330ml can of Coca-Cola Life, equal to one-quarter of a child’s recommended daily amount).

Interestingly, the Coca-Cola company reports that more than 40% of the Coca-Cola products that it sells in the U.K. are no-calorie products. In total, the company sells 100 products in the U.K. (21 brands).

We’ll have to wait and see how consumers react to Coca-Cola Life. What do you think? Good brand extension or not?

Will you buy Coca-Cola Life?

Careers: Employees in their own words

belgacom-elkeBelgacom provide employee profiles in the careers section of the corporate website (as many others do) but include links and teasers to that employee’s blog posts.

Note, too, that the other employee profiles are listed in the sidebar with an indication of how many blog posts they’ve written.

Innovation: Demonstrable strength

basf-tmBASF uses the fact that it took first place in the Patent Asset Index™ to demonstrate the innovative strength of the company, and dedicates a page to Innovation strength.

They also reference the total number of patents filed by them worldwide in 2013: about 1,300.

Investor: Understanding annual reports

bt-annualNot every first-time investor understands the annual report. BT offer a page about ‘understanding annual reports’ to explain the structure of the annual report, and what the key financial information is about.

Combined with their AGM page, which includes clear statements of the rules surrounding AGMs, this information is helpful to new investors.

Careers: Interns confirming brand messaging

ge-internsGE promotes a video created by interns at GE (after a month) on the University Students landing page.

This video not only promotes their internships as valuable experience for students, but also reiterates the ‘imagination / inspiration’ keywords of the GE brand.

Careers: Evidence of international experience

hsbc-international>Most companies now provide some information about the experience of a few of their staff, to try to give potential recruits an idea of what life might be like. HSBC have added a widget to the sidebar of these pages showing where this individual has worked.

This is a neat way of demonstrating that working internationally is a genuine possibility.