Coca Cola$$s $$Kitchen Table$$: Reaching Black Moms

Ethnic subcultures are defined as groups in which members$$ unique shared behaviors are based on a common racial, language, or national background. This chapter specifically discusses the Black subculture and highlights one initiative as a way to reach Black consumers: Coca Cola$$s Kitchen Table segment. This digital content series targeted Black moms and showed ways that Coca Cola could help bring meals together. This activity is important because you must have a thorough understanding of the attitudes and values of each group of consumers in order to develop successful marketing campaigns to reach various groups of consumers.

The goal of this activity is for you to review a marketing tool developed specifically for a Black consumer segment and consider questions relating to marketing to specific subcultures.

Read the case and answer the questions that follow.

The Kitchen Table was a digital content series developed by the Coca Cola brand as a way to reach Black consumers. It was a cooking series that included Black celebrity moms sharing tips, recipes, and traditions that they used when cooking with, or for, their actual families. The series was created because Coca Cola identified that passing down, sharing, and adapting recipes through generations was an important part of Black culture. The series featured Chef Huda, an award$-$winning celebrity chef and television host, and featured other Black celebrity moms throughout the series. These chefs prepped their favorite dishes and shared personal memories relating to the recipe or preparing the recipe with their families. The women featured in this video series were in their $40$s and $50$s and the videos were shot in a very upscale looking kitchen and used quality ingredients to prepare the recipes$$always ensuring that they somehow included Coca Cola as an ingredient in the recipe, or as a complementary beverage to pair with the meal or dish being prepared.

$1.$ Suppose that after seeing the success of these videos, Coca Cola sponsored barbeques in local Black communities where those in the target market could meet the cooks featured in the video and cook the recipes featured together. This would be an example of $\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_$ which is one effective way to communicate with some ethnic communities.

integrated marketing communications

public relations

community marketing

event marketing

venue marketing

$2.$ If Coca Cola wanted to use this video series to also target Asian Americans, what aspect would be most important for Coca Cola to ensure?

that the video features Asian models.

that the video features a mix of Black and Asian models.

that the models resonate with the Asian American market.

that Asian Americans enjoy eating chicken wings.

that the product, the appeal, and the appropriate language are the same for the Black target market and the Asian Americans being targeted.

$3.$ Yankelovich is a research service that tracks social trends and provides information on shifts in consumer behavior in various markets. In this chapter, several Black segments were identified by Yankelovich. After reviewing these segment descriptions and reading the case above, which segment do you feel a video series such as this was most likely targeting?

Black Onliners

Digital Networkers

Sick and Stressed

Family Struggles

Black is Better

$4.$ While this initiative was created with Black mothers in mind, from a consumer behavior standpoint, it is important to remember that this message may not resonate with all Black mothers in this subculture because

it is not a large enough subculture.

large variations exist within each subculture, and subcultures may have overlapping attitudes and behaviors.

no variations exist within each subculture, and subcultures should not have overlapping attitudes and behaviors

it is too large of a subculture.

many Americans identify with only $1$ subculture.