Coca Cola Self Concept Analysis

According to Baumeister (1999) the self concept can be defined as “the individual's belief about himself or herself, including the person's attributes and who and what the self is”. The Coca-Cola company, one of the world´s leading carbonated beverage manufacturers, in the summer of 2014 aired a new advertisement to reignite interest in its main product, the Coca-Cola also known as Coke. This paper will look at the Coca-Cola company´s business savvy decision to embark on a unique advertisement campaign that capitalizes on a consumer´s sense of self, at a juncture where society is becoming increasingly self obsessed as evidenced by the rise in popularity of self portrait photographs, commonly referred to as ´selfies´. In social psychology the existential self, an aspect of the self concept, is “the sense of being separate and distinct from others and the awareness of the constancy of the self” (Bee, 1992). The Coca-Cola summer campaign features a dog by the name of Bobby, searching various locations for a Coke with his name on the label. Through the clever use of catchy, pertinent

The fact that the company could only create a physical label for two hundred and fifty names means that a large number of customers would be marginalized, despite the company´s attempt to avoid this by creating a virtual, albeit less unique option, as it is open to everyone. This could contribute to feelings of inferiority in persons whom already suffer from a low self esteem and feel slighted by Coke´s summer 2014 advertisement, since their names were not popular enough to make it onto the short list. What´s more, at a time when social media facilitates popularity contests, Coca-Cola has provided another means by which narcissistic persons could further inflate their already high egos by being able to showcase their importance, since their name is being featured on the label of a well known