If you are Coca-Cola fan then you are definitely aware of the successes in their marketing campaigns over the years. So, I decided to round-up 3 of my favorite Coca-Cola campaigns and share them with you to inspire you.

Share a Coca-Cola campaign

Love is sharing right? Well, Coca Cola kicked off a brilliant ‘share a coke’ campaign, offering the chance to its fans to swap the coke brand name with their own. While at the same time they could share the experience with others. This campaign is a testament that digital marketing should be integrated in the marketing mix. And can offer more value for money. Especially if combined with the other traditional forms of marketing.

Coca Cola campaign

According to analyst David Porche, 45% of consumer sentiment has been favorable toward the campaign. “The campaign also commanded an unusually large number of shares on social media”, he says.

“There was a Facebook app last year which created a virtual customized can and was really successful,” says Drew Burdon, executive strategy director at agency R/GA. “This year Coke has doubled its investment, and what it’s trying to do is connect with consumers.”

“The campaign was originally trialed back in 2011, resulting in a 7% increase in sales. It also earned a total of more than 18 million media impressions. Additionally traffic on the Coke Facebook site increased by 870%, with page ‘likes’ growing by 39%”. Reported David Moth of Econsultancy, August 2013.

Just Dance Now mobile Coca-Cola campaign

Coca-Cola launched a mobile game branded ‘Just Dance Now’ that because an instant hit and spread around the world. The game required players to scan Coke cans to unlock special content and activities inside the game. This demonstrates the growing trend of global brands attempting to piggy-bag the gaming world.

Coca Cola campaign

For the launch of the campaign, Coca-Cola created an interactive “Dance Off installation” using the mobile game against the Les Twins. The event took place in the heart of Paris in September 2014. During which people were given the opportunity to experience for the first time the new mobile version of Just Dance and dance to the new Coca Cola song “Find Your Move”.

Exclusive Coca-Cola guests joined the public, including the internationally acclaimed French dance duo, Les Twins in partnership with DanceOn Network.

The Coca-Cola Happiness Machine campaign

 

Coca Cola vending machine

The Coca-Cola happiness machine was launched with a video showing immigrant laborers in Dubai, in the morning going to work. Grim-faced men in work clothes voice how much they miss their families, and wish they could hear their children’s voices more often. Through the video we discover that these workers make about six dollars per day, and that it costs nearly a dollar per minute to call home. So, it’s almost impossible for them to call their loved ones as it is too costly. The video ends with a hopeful message: “So what if every Coke came with a few extra minutes of happiness?”

In March 2014, Coke installed five special phone booths in labor camps in Dubai which accepted Coca-Cola bottle caps instead of coins. These allowed the workers to make a three-minute international call to their loved ones. More than forty thousand people made calls using the machines, bringing a grin to their face!!

Evoking emotions

“Few American companies have worked as hard as Coca-Cola to associate themselves with positive feelings and emotions. One of the company’s first advertising slogans, in 1905, was “Coca-Cola Revives and Sustains. The most obvious aesthetic forbear for the “Hello Happiness” ad is perhaps the iconic 1971 ad “I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke.”  During which Coke gathered hundreds of teenagers of various ethnicities on a hillside in Italy, at the height of the Cold War. There they sang an anthem about bringing harmony to the world. How? Of course by serving it a carbonated beverage.”

“That was the basic idea: to see Coke not as it was originally designed to be, but as a tiny bit of commonality between all peoples. A universally liked formula that would help to keep them company for a few minutes” says Bill Backer.

More than four decades later, Coke’s message remains more or less the same. But the company’s audience has grown considerably.  Coca-Cola then videoed people’s reactions and put the footage on YouTube. This activity earned it millions of views and tons of goodwill towards the brand, with a relatively low level of investment.

Conclusions

To conclude, the common ingredients of the success of Coca-Cola in its campaigns are the positive feelings it tries to evoke. And these are communicated by successfully blending traditional with digital marketing to bring about amazing results which have grown its communities worldwide..