Drinks giant Coca-Cola has brought back its award-winning ‘Share a Coke’ campaign in May, just in time for the summer. And in doing so, it is going to deliver its biggest sampling effort ever, with 11 million 150ml samples of Coca-Cola Zero Sugar in cities and festivals through the UK.
What is the Share a Coke campaign?
Quite simply, during the summers of 2013 and 2014, Coca-Cola swapped out their famous logo on their bottles and replaced it with over 1,000 of the UK’s most popular names.
What makes this campaign so great?
In a word, personalisation.
We all love to feel special and to identify with a brand. There’s something nice and warm about going into a shop to see your name staring back at you on the shelf. So, thanks to a simple design tweak on their labels, Coca-Cola is able to tap into these emotions.
At its core of course, Coca-Cola is already a hugely popular drink (regardless of the variety).
So who’s going to pass up on the opportunity to drink a bottle of fizzy which has their name emblazoned all over it? Moreover, this led to bottles being bought for other people, too.
And Coca-Cola was able to generate enough interest in the campaign for people to take selfies and share stories with them on social media.
The end result? More than 150 million bottles sold.
But the general idea of using personalised products to connect consumers to a business is great. Like all the top product sampling campaigns, it’s such a simple idea.
Yet it was extremely effective and created amazing brand loyalty through no real effort on Coca-Cola’s part. Planning is always needed, but it just goes to show that the best ideas don’t have to be complex at all.
What’s the difference this time?
Instead of names, this summer the bottles will display some of the world’s top holiday destinations.
We’re talking about big cities, idyllic beaches and exotic locations. The general theme is to associate Coca-Cola with pleasurable, uplifting times and it will be interesting to see whether a decrease in personalisation will have an effect on engagement levels.
Hotcow is a non-traditional creative agency that specialises in experiential marketing that goes viral. Our campaigns generate buzz through crowd participation, PR and content sharing. Contact us on 0207 5030442 or email us on info@hotcow.co.uk.
