What's the catch?

A fellow blogger passed this video along to me today:





Events like this stir up emotions of happiness and excitement but also leave a sour taste of skepticism and annoyance in my mouth.  On the surface it looks like something that was done for fun, for laughs, for putting a smile on people's faces, and out of sheer goodness.  Makes you smile, doesn't it?

But I know better. I was a business student once. I took marketing courses. And I hated them. Blatantly, outright, hated them. The pursuit of money; the spin to make a sale. Evilness I tell you! Evil.  It made me cynical and always on the lookout for the catch.

This Coke stunt is just one of those marketing schemes wrapped up in a warm and fuzzy package, tied with a pretty bow. But it's still a marketing scheme, a gimmick, a stunt, pulled off by a large corporation all in the effort to gain customer loyalty. I'm sure they made more than a few lifetime Coke drinkers out of that crowd of college kids - and what'd it cost them? A few hundred bucks worth of pop and food? Well played.

And then there's the part where it's a multi-tiered marketing scheme.  There's the original group of people they were marketing to directly - the couple hundred college kids.  And then there's the 2 million  people who have viewed the video on youtube (a free avenue of advertising which directly reaches their target demographic - bonus for them).  And then, who knows how many more times this video has been passed around through MSN, or email or, sadly, even my blog....  (I'm not proud of that - but I trust that if you're smart enough to read my blog, then you're smart enough to be a little bit discerning about the products you purchase).  Suddenly, the little college cafeteria stunt which probably cost less than $1000 to pull off has reached literally millions of people with a message that Coke is a fun, spontaneous, and giving company.  Bravo Coke, bravo.  I bet the Marketer who came up with this one got a big bonus.