The Coca-Cola company has decided to support hotels, coffee shops and restaurants, through its products when renewing their business activities in the Covid-19 pandemic times. The HORECA segment, which forms 40 per cent of the turnover of the drinks manufacturer, is among the most seriously affected business fields.
“ The last few months were difficult for people and also for business. While we as Coca-Cola were able to maintain operations, including measures to ensure employee safety, it is clear, that certain of our key customers were not in such a happy situation. This is why we want to help our retail partners, who re-opened after the enforced closure, and in particular hotels, coffee shops and restaurants” explains Natalia Stroe, the general Director of The Coca-Cola company of the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
During the quarantine in March and April, 62% of premises in the HORECA field and practically all hotels, coffee shops and restaurants were closed. Legislative measures caused a fall in income for the entire segment of 21 billion crowns in the Czech Republic, that is three quarters on an annual basis. Today 94 per cent of businesses are operating once again, but restaurant owners are only achieving half of the turnover on average and are still meeting with uncertainty and also a shortage of foreign tourists. That is why Coca-Cola launched the Open Like Never Before/Otevřeno jako nikdy dřív campaign, which appeals to customers, that even though everything will never be like it used to be, they can help restaurant owners through their visits and try to make the world more modest and better.
The company began a special offer in the first week of August called ‘’ this Coca-Cola is on us’’, where customers can get a free coke in certain restaurants. It supplied free drinks to 5000 premises and furniture sets to 1200 bars and restaurants (800 in the Czech Republic and 400 in the Slovak Republic) and equipped businesses with almost 2000 sets of additional accessories. At the same time, among other things, it joined up with Brno architects from the Gastro lives! project and selected restaurants (in Prague, the Parčík restaurant in Prosek, in Bratislava, the Danube Brewery restaurant) were supplied with additional stylish original Stoolky furniture, which was designed from ecological materials during the actual pandemic period.
‘’ We were pleased that Coca Cola noticed our Gastro lives! initiative , whose aim was to open gastro businesses as soon as possible and limit the effects of coronavirus on its operators. The realisation of the combined project and equipping of a number of restaurants with functional Stoolky furniture as part of the Open like never before campaign is a great honour for us and we are pleased that we could contribute in at least this way to bringing the HORECA segment to life’’ commented Peter Kadlec, the joint author of the Gastro lives! and Stoolky concepts.
An important part of the aid is also the investment into on-line and also off-line advertisements for individual premises, free of charge and specifically targeted with the aid of the Ad Generator, posters and billboards ‘’ The equipment will help bars and restaurants at the moment when the a given premises do not have enough resources themselves and comes at a time when customers are concentrating on the safety of their health and favour sitting outside. Investments into advertising publicise restaurants in their areas of operation towards the customer,“ adds Radim Panák, commercial director for the HORECA segment of Coca-Cola HBC ČR.
Within the framework of the Open Like Never Before/Otevřeno jako nikdy dřív initiative Coca-Cola invested a total of 60 million crowns in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. A further 13 million was directed to the support of advertisements in cinemas and on television. The company itself however also faced a number of problems and challenges. Due to the pandemic, all planned marketing activities had to be halted in April and the resources were redirected to the most needed in the front line, including the Czech and Slovak red cross. In the current period Coca-Cola now supports its retail partners who were most affected.
Coca-Cola as the largest drinks company in the Czech Republic and Slovakia offers a complete portfolio of non-alcoholic drinks In last years successful year it generated a profit of 366 million crowns. At the same time it carried out the ambitious acquisition of the Natura factory in Teplice nad Metuji at a local level and Costa coffee chain on a global level.