Coca-Cola’s ‘Share a Coke’ is back but with an even bigger marketing campaign. For its summer campaign, Coca-Cola decides to trade out its iconic logo on their 20-ounce bottles for 250 of the country’s most popular names for sale. The campaign went viral persuading people to use their hashtag, “#ShareaCoke” on social media sites such as Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, to share your experience and stories with the world. Consumers even have a chance to have their photos shared on the company’s website and across Coke billboards.
What is making this marketing campaign so successful?
1. Prompting the consumer to participate and create media content online
Coca-Cola targeted consumers who use social media to promote the campaign. By giving them creative control and brand ownership with the names attached to a product the Coke brand interacted with their audience on a whole new level. Coke lovers, especially young adults, are creating and posting memes, telling stories through pictures, and creating short video clips with friends with the personalize cokes through their lives as they see it.
Sara Kasper, Marketing Assistant, TriVision agrees it’s all about self-expression; “I think one of the reasons this campaign is doing so well is because the personalization of the product gives way to a multitude of conversation topics. These conversation topics conducted by people as they produce media content through social platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. gives the brand a lot of favorable visibility.”
2. Connects with consumers on a personal level
By putting the consumers personal identification on the can it’s making a strong appeal to the consumer’s value of individuality and desire for human connection. “For teens and Millennials, personalization is not a fad, it’s a way of life. It’s about self-expression, individual storytelling and staying connected with friends. ‘Share a Coke’ taps into all of those passions,” said Stuart Kronauge, senior vice president, sparkling brands, Coca-Cola North America.
For those who have a unique name and can’t find it on store shelves, not to worry. A 500-stop, cross-country “Share a Coke” tour will allow fans to customize a Coca-Cola mini can for themselves and a second can for someone special. Or if you don’t care too much about your name, Coca-Cola has an alternative option: nicknames, such as “bestie,” “star”, “BFF,” and “wingman” for sale. Just take TriVision’s Sales Manager, Ron Gulick (picture on top), clearly he is a huge fan of the cans!
3. The slogan’s language is a call to action with several implications
The slogan “Share a Coke” is a call to action phrase. A very cleverly designed phrase because “Share a Coke” implies both purchasing a coke to share as well as to ‘share’ about coke via social media.
This Coke campaign may spark further efforts by companies to pick up on the personalization marketing trend.