| Title | 'THE COKE HUG MACHINE' |
| Brand | THE COCA-COLA COMPANY |
| Product / Service | COCA-COLA |
| Category | A01. Event & Field Marketing |
| Entrant | OGILVY & MATHER SINGAPORE, SINGAPORE |
| Entrant Company: | OGILVY & MATHER SINGAPORE, SINGAPORE |
| Sales Promotion/Advertising Agency: | OGILVY & MATHER SINGAPORE, SINGAPORE |
| Name | Company | Position |
|---|---|---|
| Steve Back | Ogilvy/Mather Singapore | Chief Creative Officer/Art Director |
| James Procter | Ogilvy/Mather Singapore | Executive Creative Director/Copywriter |
| David Stevanov | Ogilvy/Mather Singapore | Art Director |
| Jon Loke | Ogilvy/Mather Singapore | Art Director |
| Kevin Joseph | Ogilvy/Mather Singapore | Copywriter |
| Troy Lim | Ogilvy/Mather Singapore | Copywriter |
| Eunice Ng | Ogilvy/Mather Singapore | Designer |
| Sean Soo | Ogilvy/Mather Singapore | Designer |
| James Brook-Partridge | Ogilvy/Mather Singapore | Producer |
| Alvin Chin | Ogilvy/Mather Singapore | Producer |
| Mark Sinnock | Ogilvy/Mather Singapore | President Of Strategy/Planning |
| Louise Kuegler | Ogilvy/Mather Singapore | Regional Business Director |
| Jiamei Tay | Ogilvy/Mather Singapore | Senior Account Manager |
| Samantha Burgess-Allen/Marion Mcdonald/Chelsea Chen/Angel Chen | Ogilvy/Mather Asia Pacific | Public Relations |
| Angus Gordon | The Well | Director |
| Adrian Chua | Makers Pte Ltd | Production Director |
| Leonardo O'grady | The Coca-Cola Company | Asean Imc Director |
| Shakir Moin/Andrew Jeffrey/Rommel Fuentabella/June Kong Dhanabalan/Stella Yap/Ja | The Coca-Cola Company | Clients |
'Open Happiness', a global Coca-Cola platform, invites people around the world to bring positivity, optimism and fun into their lives by opening a Coke to share a little happiness. And happiness was needed on Coke in Asia. Despite high awareness, our target drank Coke just once every 17 days (confidential:client research) and brand tracking showed 'Coke is a brand for me' scores declining 11% over 2 years (confidential:client research). We needed to engage Singaporean youth 'in their world/on their terms' through something unexpected and surprising to win attention, yet feel authentic enough they'd want to share it.
We took a regular Coca-Cola vending machine and modified it to release a can of Coke whenever pressure sensors on the sides were pressed, thus creating 'The Coke Hug Machine'. As a low-budget experiment, we aimed for ANY POSSIBLE PURCHASE INTENT INCREASE for incremental sales among Coca-Cola users in Singapore. Success here would create the business case for an Asian rollout. Our communications objective was emotional engagement through reminding consumers that sharing a Coke equals sharing a moment of happiness. We set a modest target of 10million media impressions with our US$20,000 budget.
Happiness is contagious. 'The Coke Hug Machine' was conceived as an 'Open Happiness' stunt innovation. 'The Coke Hug Machine' was unveiled at the National University of Singapore, right in the middle of a stressful exam week. 'Reactions were amazingÂ…people really had fun with it...there was a long line of people looking to give hugs-it was really heartwarming,' said Leonardo O'Grady, ASEAN IMC Director for Coca-Cola. During the excitement of the stunt, thousands of enthusiastic students captured it on mobiles and uploaded content to their social networks. This spread and generated a massive amount of media in Coke's key growth markets.
Our target drank Coke as a treat just once every 17 days (confidential:client research) and brand tracking showed 'Coke is a brand for me' scores declining 11% over 2 years (confidential:client research).