Coca Cola Last Mile Project

Maybe you remember Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, two of the most influential and globally popular icons in the early 21st century.

It is no wonder that they were featured in the advertising campaigns of two prominent Business to Consumer (B2C) companies, Coke and Pepsi.

The question is- do you remember which one was featured in the advertising campaign for Coke? Indeed most people don’t remember correctly, or even worse, they don’t care.

Companies pay a lot of money to feature a famous star in their advertising campaign. If the public don’t remember correctly or care about such advertising campaign, however, then what’s the point? In fact, there is a much better way to differentiate your brand, making people remember and care about your message.

Global Fund is a well-known international NGO which aims to do fundraising and send medicines to developing countries. They did great job overall; yet, the NGO has difficulty in supply chain management. It was not easy for them to deliver medicines fast in a good condition. So they needed a partner with a strong distribution capability.

In 2010, Global Fund and Coca-Cola launched “Project Last Mile,” a public-private partnership (PPP) to help Tanzania’s medicine distribution network build an efficient supply chain by using Coca-Cola’s world-best capability in delivering beverages. The partnership could enhance the availability of critical medicines in Tanzania and later expanded the initiative to other countries such as Ghana and Mozambique.

According to Global Fund, since 2010 the project has benefited nearly 20 million people through better access to critical medicines, reduced lead time for medicine deliveries by as much as 25 days, and improved by 20-30% the availability of critical medicines in health clinics. For more details, please read “Coca-cola and the Global Fund Announce Partnership to Help Bring Critical Medicines to Remote Regions”

This is a good example of strategic CSR or CSV which shows that the private sector can leverage its core competence to make a bigger impact for the society.