Coca-Cola Case

The "Share a Coke" campaign has been one of Coca-Cola's most successful campaigns of all time and has revitalized consumer enthusiasm for the Coca Cola brand across the globe. Its beginnings were a humble 151-word abstract in Australia that resulted in 250 of the most common first names for teens and millennials being printed on the labels of soda bottles with the imperative for consumers to "share" a coke with someone with those names. Before this campaign 50% of the young people in Australia had never even tasted a Coke. As Lucie Austin, a Coca-Cola brand executive said:

We give consumers an opportunity to express themselves through a bottle of Coke and to share the experience with someone else. The campaign capitalized on the global trend of self-expression and sharing but in an emotional way.

This small 2011 Australian campaign was hugely successful and ultimately ended up being an excellent test market for the "Share a Coke" concept. Since then, Coca Cola has expanded it to over 70 countries.

The campaign came to the United States in the summer of 2014 with a limited release of the 500 most common millennial first names. It was not long before consumers were scouring convenience stores and groceries for their own names and those of their friends and loved ones. The US campaign was an amazing success and resulted in an increase in sales of Coca Cola products for the first time in a 10-year period, while sales of competitor brands Pepsi and Doctor Pepper Snapple remained negative.

Since then, the "Share a Coke" campaign has been expanded in the US each subsequent year. In 2015, 1000 names were made available. Eventually, Coca Cola provided a website where consumers could order personalized Coca Cola products with certain hard to find names. In 2016, "Share a Coke" was back but with the twist of printing popular song lyrics on the bottles. In 2017, Coca-Cola expanded the "Share a Coke" campaign in multiple ways. The personalized products were expanded to Coke Life and Cherry Coke, in addition to the previously offered Coca Cola Classic, Coke Zero, and Diet Coke. The list was further expanded to include more than 77% of the first names of Americans between the ages of 13 and 34. Also, in line with the musical theme from the previous year Coca-Cola produced over 1000 personalized jingles from 25 different musical tracks and nine different singers. Consumers could find jingles for names like Johnny and Megan on the Coca Cola website. The jingles covered a wide range of musical genres from country western to reggae. Another innovation was printing the names of vacation hotspots including Hawaii, Bali, Ibiza, and Miami. Consumers could enter a code from their Coca-Cola products in a dedicated website to win trips to those locations.

Coca Cola has made various adaptations to best fit local and cultural preferences in different countries. According to Ajay Bathija, Marketing Director of Coca Cola India:

We did not want to copy paste the global campaign and decided to add an Indian flavor to it. Our consumer research showed that relationships in the country are becoming more informal than before and we wanted to highlight it. Our study also showed that many teenagers in India perceive their relationships differently; for example, the word dad means not just an ATM but also their champ to them. This campaign is talking about the changing relationships of young India. Therefore, in India, some labels included local slang for parents such as Papa, Didi, and Bhai, along with popular names across 11 different languages spoken in India.

In South Africa, consumers were having trouble finding their names due to such a wide variety of local tribes within the country. As a solution, Coca-Cola introduced voice activated vending machines that allowed consumers to print their own names on 200 milliliters cans. These innovative machines caught on and produced cans at a rate of about 6 cans per minute, roughly double the international standard of three cans per minute.

Launched in Vietnam and spread to markets throughout ASEAN countries, with a wide variety of languages, a focus was put on using emoticons on the bottles and a variation of the campaign called "Share a Feeling". Emoticons were thought to be a universal language that young people can use to express themselves. According to Pratik Thakar, head of Creative Content and Design Excellence, ASEAN and APAC:

Emoticons have become a perfect sharing platform, sharing of human feelings. It transcends language barriers and has pretty much become a part of popular culture across most ASEAN markets.

In each country, Coca Cola has used a quiet launch, which leads to more word of mouth (WOM) sharing because consumers are more likely to spread information they perceive to have discovered on their own before others. Promotional samples are set to local opinion leaders, including celebrities like American actress Emma Roberts and Bollywood actor to Tahir Raj Bhasin, to create buzz. The name of the campaign itself, "Share a Coke," is a powerful call to action itself. The hashtag #"Share a Coke" boosted the spreadability of the campaign as consumers would often post selfies with the bottles with their names on the label. For example, 25 million new followers liked Coca Cola on Facebook in the first year of the campaign. By 2016, over 600,000 pictures were shared on Instagram with the hashtag #"Share a Coke".

With such great success of the "Share a Coke" campaigns, Coca-Cola gives no indication that the campaign expansions will slow or stop anytime soon. This will be an interesting case to watch unfold into the future.

INSTRUCTIONS: Answer the below questions in maximum 200 words EACH (approx. 10-14 sentences). Any word more than that would NOT be considered for grading).

1. Coca-Cola launched Coke Life and Cherry Coke, in addition to the previously offered Coca Cola Classic, Coke Zero, and Diet Coke. Which relevant theory/ies from the course can be applied to understand this marketing concept of brand extension? Justify your answer. (10 marks)
2. A Selena Gomez selfie in 2017 was the most liked photo on Instagram, a record held for 204 days. The photo features the actress-singer drinking a Coca-Cola from its iconic glass bottle, as part of #"Share a Coke" campaign. Why would these celebrity endorsers be effective for a brand's marketing campaign? (10 marks)

OR

Why do brands use hashtag campaigns? (10 marks)