Types of Customer Value in Digital Marketing (Essay Sample)

DIGITAL MARKETING
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DIGITAL MARKETING
"Value is central to discussions of digital marketing. Taking an organisation of your choice, examine how they offer consumers different forms of value through their digital marketing activities."
Value is the worth of a product to the consumer’s that is how a product meets a consumer’s needs. Customers define value as the benefits associated with a product compared to the costs incurred to acquire it. If a product's benefits outweigh its costs, then it is considered attractive. Different customers have different preferences; therefore, value is viewed differently by various consumers. Firms that provide a higher customer value tend to have a better competitive advantage (Chaffey & Ellis-Chadwick, 2019). In the age of digital platforms, firms need to provide their customers' value while marketing their products digitally. In this paper, we are going to see how the Coca-cola Company offers value through digital marketing.
Coca-cola has taken part in various digital marketing campaigns; for instance, in 2019 Coca Cola Great Britain's 'Love Story' advert was about recycling, and the set consisted of recyclable materials. This showed Coca Cola stand on preserving the environment. In 2016 it ran an advert dubbed 'Taste the feeling' to show the feelings associated with drinking Coca Cola and show cultural diversity among its consumers. In 2012 Coca Cola used music as a means of storytelling (Ilyas, G. B et al 2021). Share a Coke campaign enabled people to have their names on Coke products. These are but a few instances of their campaigns. The above digital campaigns led to an increase in Coke products' sales and traffic to their sites. The company has also partnered with influencers to promote its products.
Types of Customer Value in Digital Marketing
Functional Value
When this company advertises its products, it aims at providing the customer with what to expect from using its products. Customers using the product expects them to have some features. To ensure that this is met, the company advertises realistic features of their products. They do not create unrealistic expectations of their products. The ‘Taste the feeling’ campaign showed real feelings that people felt after drinking Coke (Hemann & Burbary, 2013). This created curiosity in the minds of consumers and the need to identify with the emotions that the advertisement suggested. Since the company's drinks are expected to quench consumers' thirst, that's precisely what the product should do. Their digital campaigns should ensure that it provides digital marketing content that satisfies the performance expected from their products. This customer value is referred to as functional value. This is also a B2C value creation since the company sells the products to consumers who will be the end-users.
Another way that functional value can be met is when the consumers expect Coke's products to be high quality. Therefore there should be no complaints from customers about that. In recent years the company has worked hard to ensure that its products meet the standards that consumers expect. This has seen an increase in the demand for their products. Also, for instance, their no-sugar drinks are expected to be sugar-free, as stated in their features and marketing campaigns. The rest of their drinks are also likely to be in line with their stated components. This will ensure that consumers choose products that meet the features and characteristics that suit their needs.
To ensure that the functional need is met, the product has to meet and satisfy the demand that the company advertised it will.
Social Value
Using teenagers and other groups of people and showing cultural diversity, the Coca Cola Company meets the social value aspect of its consumers. This ensures that the customers can relate and feel acknowledged by the company. Also, participating in campaigns that touch on matters such as recycling in their advertisement paints a good picture among the consumers since they will view the company as giving back to society. This will promote sales as consumers and society, in general, will want to buy from a philanthropic company. This gives a consumer a feeling of having a place in the affairs of the company. By running campaigns with diverse individuals, the consumers of such digital content can learn about different cultures; this may lead to the consumers forming a connection with others when they partake in these products. This is an instance of a company creating value for the end consumers of its products.
The Coca Cola Company also ensures that it is up to date with the current matters in its various markets. This ensures that they design products that are suitable for the different needs of their consumers. For instance, when the sugar tax came into practice in the UK, the company ran a campaign showing that its recipe has not for the past 132 years. They also packaged their products into red packaging to ensure that consumers tried their no-sugar option drinks. Here they meet the social value of their consumers (Kingsnorth, 2016). All digital marketing campaigns should try to address the needs and concerns of consumers in different markets. This will ensure the success of the company's products.
Marketing using sporting events such as Rio 2016, where a campaign was launched to honour the feelings of attaining something great, the company accomplished the social value to the consumer by featuring athletes from other countries. The company established a place where fans could take photos and buy products. This created a sense of belonging for their consumers and enabled people to relate with each other. Consumers present at the Olympic Park could feel a sense of accomplishment, therefore, placing more value on the company's products.
The Epistemic Value
Creating digital content appealing to the audience has ensured Coca Cola's dominance in the food and beverage industry. Creating content that shows fun induces the need to have more profound knowledge about the product. This meets the epistemic value for the customer. Therefore by turning their advertisements into fun experiences, Coca Cola can induce curiosity in the minds of its consumers (Rana, 2020). This will, in turn, lead to more sales and traffic to their social media platforms. This is an example of a company adding value to its products for its end users.
Coca Cola has been using colourful digital marketing tools which attract the attention of every group of consumers. Through this, the company has introduced a product that dominates the market within a short period. The curiosity achieves this that they create in the minds of their consumers. When satisfying this epistemic value, the consumers will receive enough traffic to promote their sales. This value can also be met by showing the different cultures of people in the world through, for instance, a video. This will attract people to watch the video, which will, in turn, create a need to learn more. The more people that watch the video, the more the sales.
Conditional Value
Consumers' conditional value may be met, for instance, when a company portrays its products' consumers as superior to those who use its competitors' products, for example, where Coca-cola consumers are described to be superior to those of Pepsi. This can be done by suggesting that coke products are of high quality. The company perfectly meets these consumer values by ensuring its consumers identify as part of a particular group. By clearly stating in their advertisements that Coke has not changed its recipe for the past 132 years, it gives their consumers the satisfaction that the product is reliable and high quality (Möller, K. 2006).. This further meets the consumers' conditional value. This will encourage consumers to partake in Coke products to have a taste of this ageless drink.
Conditional value is also achieved through the mystery that Coke has created around its recipe. When they market their products and state this, it creates a sense of curiosity among their consumers who will want to discover the formula of the products, therefore, creating more traffic to their Facebook pages, for instance. If consumers are reminded of this periodically, it will ensure that the company gets more searches on google and likes on other social media platforms, which will lead to an increase in sales. Also, the company can study its markets and determine when its products are in high demand to be prepared to meet needs that arise then (Tuten & Solomon, 2018). For instance, if they identify that their products are in demand during certain seasons or celebrations, they can market their products more than to ensure they can meet their customers’ needs and increase their products' inventory during this period. Also, they can present their marketing strategies to represent these celebrations to catch the eyes of their consumers.
Once some of their products have been identified as superior, for instance, the Coke drink, the rest of their products will be viewed the same and will not require a lot of marketing to be attractive to the consumers. Once they are introduced to the market, the consumer can identify them as superior and unique.
Satisfying Emotional or Psychological Value
This is attained from the capability to elicit an emotional response. This can be a broad range of reactions. When a company can tap into particular emotions, it satisfies this value. In the Rio 2016 campaign Coca Cola was able to evoke anticipation, which comes...