Launch of Coca Cola’s New Reduced Calorie Soda
Over the years Coca Cola has been accused of contributing to the global obesity epidemic through the release of their products which are higher in sugar and calories. With the growing movement towards healthy eating, Coca Cola has attempted to “adjust with the times” by releasing a new low calorie soda that would have the same taste as their current products yet be healthier due to its lower caloric content.
To start off its global product launch, the company will start by launching its latest soda creation in the country with the highest consumption rate (i.e. the U.S.). Its first campaign will begin in Times Square in New York City where the company will give away as many cans as a person can carry. The objective of this event is to generate substantial levels of awareness regarding the company’s low calorie soda by making the giveaway happen in a public venue where it is likely that hundreds would attend resulting in a considerable level of social media hype as people post on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram about their experience. The expected outcome is greater awareness for the product through word of mouth advertising as well as the event being featured on the news which should enable the company to reach millions of Americans without having to spend massive amounts of money on TV commercial.
The primary stakeholder for this event is the Coca Cola Company since they are paying for the successful launch of their low calorie product. Secondary stakeholders come in the form of local officials and the police department of New York City since they would need to assign personnel to the area to prevent the event from getting out of hand. The primary constraint that will be implemented in this event is that the amount of people that will be given as many drinks as they can carry will be limited to an estimated 500 people. The reason behind is due to the fact that the event needs to have budget constraints implemented and cannot simply keep on giving away free cans of coke to everyone in New York city. At a $1.50 per can of the reduced calorie soda and an estimated 15 can carrying capacity per person, the amount of money that will be attributed just for the product giveaway alone will reach $11,250. When taking into consideration the possibility that other people may bring bags with them, the amount of money allocated for the giveaway will reach $15,000 which is still within reasonable limits for the company.
Aside from this, there are also costs associated with renting out the street for the venue which is roughly $10,000 for a few hours (this includes costs associated with having cops and other city personnel in the location). Lastly, the venue would need to hire personnel, barricades and setup a platform where announcements and music can be played. Overall, this last aspect of the plan is expected to cost $25,000 at the very minimum given the amount of personnel, material and miscellaneous costs for the event. In total, the event is expected to cost the company $50,000 just for one day. However, what should be taken into consideration regarding the costs is the fact that given the location and the sheer amount of news coverage that the venue would result in, the level of consumer awareness for the product will skyrocket resulting in high future sales for the company’s new product.
Some of the identified problems that may occur over the course of the event come in the form of disruptions from within the crowd of individuals that will come. A riot is very likely possible since the company is giving away free products. To prevent this, there will be security personnel roaming the crowds to prevent such a situation from happening and to ensure that potential “flare ups” within the crowd of people are dealt with immediately. Lastly, the event is expected to merely last 2 to 3 hours due to the sheer amount of people that are in Time Square and the limited amount of giveaway cans that the company will be distributing.
As you may know, the company is about to launch its new product with you John at the head of its first event in New York City. This very important for the company since the first event will dictate how the rest of the events will follow in the other cities where the promotions are planned. I have outlined the following tasks that you are to perform leading up to the event so that you will know exactly how to proceed. While I am giving you a lot of leeway when it comes to the initial product launch, I still have the final say as to whether or not what you have chosen will be approved for funding.
Framing the Project
One of the first steps necessary in creating a project team for this particular undertaking is to frame the project in terms of its goal, what resources are available, what is the timeline for each step in the process and how will responsibility be delegated to individual team members. For this particular project the following can be considered an outline of how the project should look like from inception to outcome:
- You need effective suppliers for the event materials as well as a list of hired hands for the venue. You will need to ask our HR department for someone with experience in the entertainment and temporary worker industry in order to carry this out.
- Determining where the event should be located in order to facilitate effective market saturation (Balasubramanian and Baumgardner 52). It goes without saying that you need to find a good place for the location. One possible venue is Time Square, this is mainly due to its centralised location and the fact that it is close to several nearby news studios so they may develop a considerable amount of interest in covering the event.
- Organising appropriate employee systems to facilitate the event. I expect that you will create an effective organisational structure for the event so that things will go smoothly. Send me any personnel requests and I will see what I can do.
I expect to be constantly updated regarding your progress. Remember John, a lot is riding on this; we need you at your best.
I completely understand where you are coming from on this and I assure you that I will do my best to ensure that everything goes smoothly for the project. Regarding your idea for the venue, I agree that it is a good location and I will send some details to my contacts at the local news studios to make sure that we get as much coverage as possible.
Team Composition
Since you have already provided a basic project outline, I have come up with an organisational structure for the team that I believe would be best suited for the event.
The method that will be utilised is the vertical approach, more commonly known as the “top down approach”. I will establish a strict hierarchy with orders coming from the team leader (namely me) getting passed to the appropriate team member resulting in that individual accomplishing the task given to them (Micheal, Rochford & Wotruba 2003). This method seems to be the best suited for our needs since you want to have the final say in the project. The proposed method allows greater control over the process of task delegation and compliance to an established plan. Do note though that it does limit to a certain extent the ability of a project to effectively respond to changes that occur, however, given the amount of time between now and the start of the event, I am sure that such changes can be dealt with rather easily.
Minutes of the Meeting
The primary subject of this meeting was to deal with the issue of renting/purchasing equipment. The reason behind this was related to the fact that Coca Cola as a company may have thousands of potential paraphernalia in the form of banners, logos, t-shirts, etc. but is lacking in the necessary equipment for the event such as a stage, a sound system and the barricades necessary to keep people in the line. It is due to this that one division of the project team for this particular event will deal with establishing business agreements with suppliers in order to facilitate the needs of the company for the event. In fact this particular aspect of operations can be considered the most important since without it the event will not become viable at all.
This update is in regard to the current agreements being setup with local equipment suppliers and temporary staffing companies for the event. Based on the recommendation of the project manager, it was determined that an initial promotion period would be needed so that people would know about the event before it occurred.
The location of the target market will primarily be in the Lower East Side of Manhattan as well as several other prominent locations within New York City. The reason behind this is due to the fact that these areas contain some of the highest concentrations of people within the city and, as such would be ideal locations to place posters and signs telling people when the giveaway will be and what time it will start. Due to the fact that the lower calorie soda from Coca Cola is still relatively new, it would be necessary to test it out within a given location first before further expansion into other territories (Bhargava 203). Due to the concentration of people within the aforementioned locations in New York City, the area seems to be the most viable location to test the product out before the main giveaway.
It has recently come to my attention that we are experiencing a considerable amount of resistance from local officials in New York. As noted by the liaison team, there was a general lack of local support from the mayor’s office as well as scepticism from the local police precinct regarding the viability of the event. As you well know, Mayor Bloomberg tried to start a “war against obesity” in New York with the first “attack” so to speak being aimed at soda companies by limiting the size of the drinks that were sold. It is not surprising that we have encountered a level of resistance from his office. While we cannot change his mind, the fact remains that what we are doing is still perfectly legal and, as such, all we need to do is acquire the necessary permit. Even if we do not have the support of the mayor’s office, we can still make this event a success by making sure that we hire enough personnel to ensure everything goes without any issues. Aside from this, we also need to make sure that the local police precinct in the area is updated regarding our activities. By showing them all the precautions that we have taken so far and the amount of security personnel that we have hired, I am sure that they will comply with what we want. The liaison team will be handling this since Martin has volunteered for the task.
Aside from this, it has been brought to my attention that our initial marketing efforts to create awareness regarding the upcoming event have not resulted in a considerable amount of success. To resolve this, we need to utilise more print ads, advertisements, flyers and word of mouth in order to encourage people to go to the event. This particular aspect of our event must be resolved immediately in order for it to be successful since if only a few people come, we will not be able to get the desired level of popularity and news coverage that we need in order to pull off the event successfully.
Do note that we have yet to utilise social media to announce the event; we will need to do so in order to increase the amount of people that will come. This should be handled by our marketing team since they are the ones primarily responsible for the task.
I am confident that the team can overcome the indicated issues in order to make the project a successful one.
Project Life Cycle Achievement
This section of the report evaluates the end of the project life cycle after the event was over. It is important to note that all projects are subject to a certain lifecycle as indicated by the inherent limitations of the project itself and, as such, it becomes important to determine whether the team either contributed towards meeting deadline objectives, going over the deadline or even completing the project earlier than expected. Project teams that expend more resources and time than what is legitimately necessary can thus be categorised as inefficient and negligent since it is their responsibility to ensure that projects are able to stay within set limits.
Thus, in evaluating a project team on the basis of life cycle achievement it is important to determine whether they sufficiently utilised project management tools which are necessary aspects in ensuring proper project completion. This can come in the form of financial planning tools, time sheets, completed project milestones, daily reports and logistics software which combines all this data in order to determine the current rate of project completion versus the rate in which the project team should have been working at. By examining the data from such tools it will be easy to evaluate whether the team was able to properly meet and accomplish specific project milestones within a given time frame and if it was able to meet the project deadline that was created at during the project planning stage.
Examination of Event Outcome and Project team
When looking at the outcome of the event, it can be described as an absolute success since there was a considerable amount of news coverage surrounding the event and there were very few incidents among the gathered crowd. It is based on the success of the event that Coca Cola will continue its product launch in more cities around the world. Based on the data presented, the micro problems that have been identified from the drink giveaway event entail issues with the depiction of information and slight errors in information presentation. This issue centres primarily on the reports that were submitted from the individual project teams. There was a lack of sufficient inventory on the product supplies that were handed out as well as a distinct lack of expense reports regarding the various banners, signs and other products utilised over the course of the event. However, given the success of the event in general and the fact that these were relatively minor problems, it can be stated that this can be let go so long as these issues are addressed in the future events that the company will carry out.
Gantt chart for Event Management
Works Cited
Bhargava, Hemant. “Platform Technologies And Network Goods: Insights On Product Launch And Management.” Information Technology & Management 15.3 (2014): 199-209. Print.
Balasubramanian, Raj, and Steve Baumgardner. “Good Supplier Management Aids New Product Launch.” Quality Progress 37.6 (2004): 49-57. Print.
Micheal, K, Rochford, L, & Wotruba, T 2003, ‘How New Product Introductions Affect Sales Management Strategy: The Impact of Type of “Newness” of the New Product’, Journal Of Product Innovation Management, 20, 4, pp. 270-283. Print.