Facebook, Coca-Cola and medical aid in Africa
A recent development on Facebook has shown that social networking may be more powerful than simply a vehicle for gossip between friends, co-workers and ex-significant others.
When Coca-Cola executives responded to a Facebook-based call for humanitarian action, it showed a new opportunity for dialogue between consumers and corporations: smart organisers can harness this kind of rapid message-spreading medium to foster a conversation between the decision-makers at the top and the masses at the point-of-use.
Incensed by the irony that remote African communities had limitless access to bottles of Coca-Cola, but no infrastructure to get medicines to sick children, innovator Simon Berry decided to speak up and ask Coca-Cola to dedicate a fraction of its distribution network to carry medicines for simple, widespread and life-threatening ailments like diarrhea.
