Brand relationships have become a lot more personal. People consider brands almost like personal friends. They have a fairly personal relationship with the brands they buy on a regular basis. If one of your friends upsets you, or does something you are not happy about, you might tolerate it for a little while. But there is sort of an elastic limit to that. |
Coke is an enduring brand. It's got quite a lot of goodwill among consumers, so it can probably ride things like this. But then there's the question of short-term damage. They probably could have minimized it further. |
Even if there's no absolute answer at that stage, being seen to be doing something about it is a very positive thing. |