The Campaign

The soft drink market has never been so competitive. Coca-Cola needed to adapt, to maintain relevance and its role across Teens, Young Adults and household shoppers. 50% of teens and young adults hadn’t enjoyed a Coca-Cola in the previous month. The objective was to increase consumption amongst the masses while targeting 24 year-olds and get people talking about Coke. Coca-Cola has always been an integral part of people coming together. However, in our digital world, the way we connect had changed. We had to jump start some real conversations - with people you may have lost touch with, or were yet to meet; and nothing reminds you more of someone than their first name. We printed the 150 most popular Australian names on Coke bottles and invited Australians to ‘Share a Coke’, once more becoming part of people coming together with the best conversation starter of all; a first name.

Success of the Campaign

Success exceeded expectations, in just the first 3 months of the campaign; 1. Increase consumption Sales transactions across bottles and cans of Coke grew by 3% and volume increased by 4% - all during the wettest Australian summer since records began 111 years ago. An astonishing 5% of Australians began to drink Coke again. Young Adult consumption increased significantly during the campaign, increasing 7% (Source: 3MM P4W Consumption Oct-Dec 2011 B3 Survey Australia). This was achieved without increasing distribution. 2. Get people talking about Coke again. We ignited water-cooler conversations. We earned a total of 12,020,000 media impressions. Traffic on our Facebook site increased by 870%. In Australia, we were the number 1 most talked about Facebook page, and 23rd globally. 76,000 virtual Coke cans were shared and 378,000 Coke cans with names were printed and shared at local Westfield Malls across the country. The campaign marked a re-energising of a life-long relationship with the world’s most iconic brand.

Describe how the campaign/entry was launched and executed across each channel in the order of implementation.

Before launching, we fuelled buzz by releasing these never-before-seen Coke bottles across Australia. Our campaign launched on Australia’s highest rated media weekend with OOH, digital, 150 name specific radio songs, and 20 crowd-sourced TVCs. An interactive billboard was projected on Sydney’s iconic Coca-Cola sign where passers-by could text a friend’s name to see it up in lights. Our Facebook platform allowed consumers to: o Personalize and share virtual Coke cans. o Make their own TVC, featuring friends’ pictures. o Share the 150 name specific songs. To further fuel the hype, personalized Coke cans were sent to celebrities. Requests for more names poured in, so kiosks toured Australia where people could personalize a can of Coca-Cola. The requests continued, we put it to a vote and asked Australians who they wanted to ‘Share a Coke’ with most. After thousands of entries, 50 new names were released.