Coke in decline. Who would have imagined that possible?
In the summer of 2011, Coke was struggling. The brand that had always been about youth, hanging out together and summer fun wasn’t reaching teens and young adults. 40% of them hadn’t even tasted a Coke. Everyone knew about the brand. Fewer and fewer were drinking the product. Coca-Cola wanted to increase Coke drinking over summer and get people talking about Coke again.
Coca-Cola wanted a core idea that would reunite Australians with the idea of getting together and sharing a good time over a Coca-Cola. What Ogilvy Australia developed with a little help from Naked Communications, Wunderman, Ikon, Fuel, Urban, Momentum and One Green Bean did next was unusual for an advertising campaign.
Share a Coke: The advertising idea on a bottle
The advertising idea was not put on TV. It was put on the packaging. Share a Coke was about personalised Coke bottles. 150 of Australia’s most popular names were put on Coke bottles and the company let the general public discover the names on the bottles themselves, sparking online conversations and media interest. Then, when the fad was in full swing, Coke invited people to “share a Coke with someone you know, or want to know.” And Coke gave people the tools to find, connect and share.
First, the campaign story broke on page three of The Australian newspaper, followed by a flow of marketing trade coverage. Then the television commercials, which featured a montage of volunteered photos of real people who shared that name, aired across the NRL and AFL grand finals weekends, reaching 30% of the population.
Media and celebrity influencers with a large social media footprint were identified and sent personalised seeding kits with a Coke product bearing their name, including campaign messaging to share with their network of fans.
Through a partnership with Austereo, 150 name songs were created and broadcast on air nationally. Consumers then used these songs as inspiration to connect via Facebook.
People were invited to SMS a friend’s name, which was projected live onto the iconic ‘Coca-Cola’ sign at Sydney’s King’s Cross. They then received an MMS enabling them to share their friend’s name up in lights, via Facebook and email.
Facebook provided people with the tools to connect and Share a Coke by creating a personalised virtual Coke can to share with a Facebook friend, and making their own TVC, featuring their friends’ profile pictures.
The campaign even gave a boost to the newly budded digital printing industry. Read the HP Indigo Share a Coke case study here.
Coca-Cola’s most effective advertising for years
The campaign exceeded expectations in Australia. Millions of Australians got together and Shared a Coke either virtually or literally.
Young adult consumption increased significantly during the campaign, up by 7%. The campaign earned a total of 18,300,000-plus media impressions.
Traffic on the Coke Facebook site increased by 870% and the Facebook page grew 39%. In Australia, Coke was the number one most talked about Facebook page and 23rd globally. Seventy-six thousand virtual Coke cans were shared online and 378,000 custom Coke cans were printed at local Westfield malls across the country.
The campaign was extended internationally in 2013. The campaign has run in more than seventy countries through the world. In the UK, YouGov decided to study its progression and impact with UK consumers. The uplift in how consumers see the brand, by age group, can be seen below:
Share a Coke changed the face of Coca-Cola's 2013 annual results in the European countries in which Share a Coke ran. In Germany, for example, Coke attributed a 5% full year volume growth to the campaign:
Share a Coke reverses a 10 year decline in the US.
Share a Coke launched in the US during its summer 2014. Six months later and three years after Share a Coke launched in Australia, the US results are in. The most significant one is that Coke has experienced a sales rise for the first time in more than a decade. Coke had experienced ten years of steady sales dollars decline until Share a Coke launched.
Official sales figures will be formally revealed during its earnings call in late October, but The Wall Street Journal has learned that sales volumes are up 0.4% for the twelve weeks through August of this year, compared to the same period last year, and that sales dollars are up 2.5% overall.
Coca-Cola's biggest rivals in the US, PepsiCo and Dr Pepper Snapple Group, have remained in the negatives.
Coca-Cola is increasing its advertising budget by US$1 billion in the next three years. Its budget was $3.3 billion in 2013.
Share a Coke was never intended to mark a permanent change to the soft drink bottles, but the company has said there will be "serious consideration" given to bringing the packaging idea back again in the US next summer.
Why the packaging idea was so successful
Lucie Austin was one of the original brand executives in Australia to launch the campaign. She now runs marketing for the Northwest Europe and Nordics business unit at Coca-Cola.
Austin explains the success of the packaging idea: "At the end of the day, our name is the most personal thing we have. It's our fingerprint…our identity…in one word.
"We gave consumers an opportunity to express themselves through a bottle of Coke, and to share the experience with someone else. The fact that your name is on a Coke bottle, it can't get more personal than that! The campaign capitalized on the global trend of self-expression and sharing, but in an emotional way. Coke is big enough to pull off an idea like this, which speaks to the iconic nature of the brand. Who would want their name on a brand unless it was as iconic as Coke? Share a Coke found the sweet spot by making consumers famous through the most iconic brand in the world.
The case study that tells it all:
