Coca-Cola started as a carbonated soft drink. The company is based in Atlanta, Georgia, US. It was originally invented as a patent medicine. The name Coca-Cola is taken from the ingredients, which are Kola-nuts and coco leaves.
The secret formula used to make Coca-Cola has remained a secret to date. Many attempts have tried to unearth that recipe but none of the has ever achieved that. The size of this company is so huge by the efforts and marketing campaigns that the company launched, one of them being the ‘share a coke’ campaign that was successful worldwide because of the brilliance of the campaign. Coca-Cola is currently the 6th most valuable brand in the world, according to Forbes.
How it Started
The campaign was created by Mather Australia which was Coca-Cola’s advertising agency and it was initially launched in Australia in 2012 and in Britain in 2013. The campaign targeted the audience on TV, Billboards, and through experimental advertising where the consumers can make their own names.
The majority of success came from digital platforms where the hashtag #shareacoke became trending where the users can post their pictures with coke and it advertised the campaign on itself.
The brand wanted to obviously increase its sales, but the company also wanted to build a connection with its customers by adopting an emotional approach to the campaign, and it proved to be a success. The customers started to share a coke with whomever they wanted as a token of their gratitude. They wanted to market the brand and not only the product but the values and name also.
Encouraging Customers to Participate
Coke didn’t just plan a strategy to advertise their product continuously, they involved the customers in a personal experience to provide a unique experience where they feel that they have contributed in some way and feel involved and connected on a deeper level. This way Coca-Cola brilliantly involved customers to market their brand without spending heavily.
CTA
Coca-Cola developed a very strong yet simple Call to action with ‘Share a coke’, which gives a feeling of showing gratitude and connected this gesture to a positive emotion, which made this campaign incredibly successful.
Impact on Coca-Cola
The impact this Campaign had on the Business is described in a report by IPA Social Works-
- #ShareaCoke had 89,000 uses on Twitter and 496,000 uses on Instagram
- Fans of the program were also eager to share virtual bottles on ShareaCoke.com
- There was better than a 1:1 ratio of visits (6.8 million) to virtual bottles made (6.1 million)
- Organic celebrity posts generated approximately 13.6 million impressions and 381,424 expressions
- Coca-Cola’s owned social channels generated significant engagement. A robust content calendar of organic
- work helped provide a strong paid social cadence throughout the life of the campaign.
- There were 51 million impressions with an average engagement rate of 7.8% (the benchmark being 1.5%)
- Influencer tweets promoted via @CocaCola delivered an engagement rate of 13.88%.
- There were 3.79 million impressions with an average ‘like’ rate of 8.7% (the benchmark being 2–4%)
- There were 9.1 million impressions and over 204,000 engagements resulting in an overall 2.3% engagement
- rate (on par with the benchmark of 2.5%)
- Coca-Cola gained 9,000 new followers since the start of the campaign bringing the total follower count to
- over 118,000 followers (+8%)
- Paid support of organic posts generated 105 million impressions by the campaign’s end
- There was a click-through rate of 2.16% and 11,760 shares.
The success of this campaign highlighted the importance of Social Media in today’s world and how it can contribute to the success of a campaign. The brands can connect with customers in a personal manner to stay relevant in long term. That is how Coca-Cola created one of the best ad campaigns ever.