The Campaign

The Australian media market is becoming increasingly fragmented and diversified. High smartphone penetration and strong presence of ‘connected TV’, by major players such as Foxtel, have empowered the Australian consumer to take control of their viewing habits. In general, branded entertainment is free from restrictions and regulations in Australia – although the brand or company financing any activity must be clearly disclosed. There are five main free-to-air networks and two of them, the government owned ABC and SBS, have severe restrictions on branded content. There are considerable number of free-to-air digital channels, and a large number of paid-for networks, which have no significant restrictions. Branded entertainment is a growth area in Australia, although to date most activity has taken place online. On TV product placement is a far more common phenomenon, occurring frequently for FMCG and retail brands. As such, there has been little branded activity to date that is specifically developed around a clear brand strategy.

Results

In recent years Coca-Cola has seen increase in external pressures in Australia. The simple truth is, Coca-Cola doesn’t need to get people to think differently. It needs to get them to act differently – to pick us up rather than pass us by. Our objectives were to deliver a volume increase nearly four times greater than the previous year. Since 2012 was Coca-Cola’s 75th anniversary in Australia, we decided to celebrate by asking Australia to share their favourite musical memories. Our strategy was to connect Coca-Cola with music in a simple shareable way that both inspired greater purchase of our products and delivered real, rich content that demonstrated the brand’s commitment and ability to “Open Happiness.” To achieve this, we partnered with three leading music TV stations – MTV, Max and Channel V – to create unique shows for each channel curated by Australian Coca-Cola consumers. To discover the country’s favourite musical moments, we partnered with Spotify and Universal Music to turn individual Coke packs into ‘digital jukeboxes’; on each pack was printed a year, between 1938 and 2012 – scanning these with a smartphone played 50 classic tracks from that year. These songs – and the entire Spotify library – could then be shared with friends and family in a purpose built app running through Facebook and Spotify. Consumers shared a song, the year, the moment or memory it recalled, and the people that were there. These snapshots of the past became the basis for the shows – turning individual consumer engagement into mainstream content creation. The shows, supported via channel promos and Coca-Cola’s broader marketing support, celebrated the best moments in music over the years such as the classic songs from the 1980s, the unforgettable sounds of summer, the music that made the ultimate festivals.

Done correctly, branded entertainment never pushes viewers to its content, but pulls them in. We achieved this by making packs of Coca-Cola the literal instruments of the idea. These unmistakeable icons became the physical entry point to the entire idea, and through interacting with them digitally consumers themselves became the creators of the content we used in our branded entertainment. To drive our audience beyond the pack to actually viewing the content, we supported the campaign with a multi-media advertising campaign featuring TV and outdoor, whilst our partner channels promoted the content via links and promos in their existing schedule.

We received enormous support from our three media partners. MTV’s show was called ‘Playback’ and featured 5 themes (e.g. Party Starters, Chillin’, and Love Songs.) The series aired a total of 20 times over a 6 week period. Channel V’s show was called ‘Memory Mixtape’ and consisted of seven 30 minute shows (For example, ‘Favourite summer anthems’, ‘First Kiss Songs’ and ‘Break-up Songs’). Each episode was supported with a minimum 21 promo spots and within each episode were 2 showings of our TVC. Max’s show was a ‘Best of…’ including best of 1984, 1991, and best BBQ songs! Each episode was also supported with a minimum 21 promo spots and within each episode were 2 showings of our TVC. The brand gained enormously from our activity. ‘Brand love’ increased =4 points to 46% Facebook engagement increased 400%. 240,000,000 unique packs were sold. Volume grew 11.5%. Australia shared songs, they shared moments, and most significantly, they shared packs of Coke.