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Coca-Cola | Coke Studio | Pepsi | Pakistan
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  Coke Studio (Pakistan)
Coke Studio (Pakistan)
pop music
by Umair Naeem
August 25, 2008

Coca-Cola has always been a brand associated with youth and exuberance, surrounded by a positive contemporary outlook on life. The marketers behind it must have continued to do something right, as Coke remains arguably one of the most well known brands in the world.

 
In Pakistan, however, Coca-Cola has had to play catch-up with Pepsi, which has dominated the beverage industry by capitalizing on the strategic and influential platforms of popular music and the sport of cricket. In recent times though, Coke has made great headway with creative campaigns. Hot on the heels of its successful "Brrrrr" campaign, featuring the likes of Zainab Qayyum (a.k.a. ZQ) and Adeel Hashmi, came Coke Studio: a series of made-for-TV studio sessions featuring the best of Pakistan’s rock stars and classical musicians.

Coke Studio promised a fusion of classical eastern and contemporary western music, and delivered it through four hour-long fortnightly episodes, which went on air at prime time, simultaneously on nearly eleven satellite channels as well as selected cable channels and FM radio channels. Through its unique style and nationwide command over airtime, the campaign created a great stir, and the production was unanimously well received by music enthusiasts.

The website for Coke Studio ties in very nicely with the media campaign behind it, and is one of the better examples of integrating website content into a 360-degree marketing effort leveraged in Pakistan. Enter the website and visitors are met with a maroon background color that is just so "Coke," in addition to visuals that are reminiscent of the atmosphere in the studio sessions. The home page is a nicely balanced blend of easy to load Flash visuals and simple to access content. Aesthetically, the website has a blog-like feel to it (as it uses the Wordpress platform) but it remains easy on the eye, and has a uniform coherent feel.

By continuing to click through the website's well-orchestrated and easily navigable links, guests can access content from the various recording sessions and all four episodes of the Coke Studio sessions. Everything that fans could want is available, from wallpapers and photographs, to videos and audio recordings of all the different performances—all of which are downloadable. The latter fact is something to appreciate, as Coke seems to be relying more on the online accessibility of the music content rather than releasing a future CD/DVD and making money from it.

 
 
Coke Studio (Pakistan) Coke Studio Online caters to just about everything a visitor would want. It offers an RSS facility and also allows visitors to leave comments and find out about air times, artists and the concepts behind the shows. But in its simplicity, it misses out on a few things that could have made it a truly complete website. For one thing, there are no live discussion forums. This is something that could have considerably increased fan base enthusiasm and traffic for the site. It appears the developers left this important function to Facebook, as the website features a link for Coke Studio's Facebook group.

A second revelation that strikes visitors upon navigating around the Coke Studio website is that the developers did not really think about value addition. For example, the Artists page has names and photos of all the performers, but no biographical information or further links. The News page only offers air times, and surprisingly neglects to provide news of upcoming events or seasons. This is something that leaves the visitor uninformed and a bit frustrated.

It is clear, however, that Coke Studio is a simple yet effective undertaking that not only showcases a fusion of different styles of music, but also a marriage of ATL broadcasts with effective online content. But the best thing about the website is that it stays true to the popular Coke Studio broadcasts by offering quality music content, and shies away from the allure of being glitzy and obsessing with itself—instead, the website addresses the interests of prospective and current consumers.

 

Umair Naeem has an MBA in Marketing from IBA Karachi, and currently works with a leading Multinational FMCG Company in Pakistan. He is also an Editor with CIO Pakistan as well as being a columnist on e-Pakistan for Netxpress Online.

*Due to the constantly changing environment of websites, some reviews may no longer reflect the current website for this brand.
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Coke Studio (Pakistan) - pop music
 
 Umair,thank you for reviewing Coke Studio, but I'm curious as to how a review can be complete without contacting the company that developed the website or the Coke Studio team themselves. As CEO of Creative Chaos, the company which developed the website, I can say that the deficiencies you pointed out were not a result of an oversight by the "developers"; rather they were a product of budgetary constraints. Had you bothered to contact us we could have told you that right now there are no future seasons planned hence no need to provide any information on the news section. As someone who has been writing in the national press for ten years now I'd highly recommend that you take the time out to contact people associated with the endeavor you are "reviewing" to be able to write a comprehensive review rather than an "opinion" piece.sincerely,Shakir HusainCEOCreative Chaos (Private) Limited 
Shakir Husain, CEO, Creative Chaos (Private) Limited - August 27, 2008
 
 in reference to Mr. Husain's comments.I thought reviews were all about "opinion". When you review a movie, you don't ask the director why it is, the way it is. The chef at a restaurant doesn't explain rational behind the food. They get reviewed purely at face value (consumer experience)So, I believe, as a user/reviewer, Umair has the right to give his opinion on Coke studio (which was mostly positive review). The beauty of interactive media is that Mr. Husain can defend his stand point, however, I still feel the author has the right to state his 'consumer/user' experience. 
Jaspreet Singh Chohan, Marketing Manager, UKFC - August 27, 2008
 
 Jaspreet Singh Chohan :True, but a website is not a dish or a movie... it's a product, thrown at a consumer's way to be used.. all products come with instructions.. and there's a way to use it, and to use it well to it's fullest potential.Keeping that in mind, I do agree to what Mr.Hussain has to say. 
Shahzad Khan, Creative Designer, Conceptual Konfusion Creative Park - September 1, 2008
 
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