The Success of Coca-Cola’s ‘Share A Coke’ Campaign.

https://www.marketingmag.com.au/hubs-c/share-a-coke-campaign-post-analysis/

A social media campaign that captured my attention was the ‘Share A Coke’ campaign! I thought a campaign like that was the first kind for Coca-Cola but I have learned that it was not. There was a campaign called “I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke” from the 1970s — the one with the iconic “hilltop commercial featuring people from all over the world. Coca-Cola decided to do a remix of that campaign but add a bit more complexity. The marketing team had to launch a global campaign with many moving parts, multiple media platforms, and new workflows. While the ‘Share A Coke’ campaign started in Australia, it would soon hit more than 80 countries over seven years.

https://www.sponsoredlinxacademy.com.au/boost-your-brand-with-user-generated-content/

Objectives:

They targeted millennials because they saw it as the largest opportunity with the most widespread behavior of social media sharing.

Coca-Cola had two goals they wanted to accomplish out of the Share A Coke Campaign:

1. Increase sales during the summer in Australia.

2. Engage with customers by talking to them.

They didn’t want people to only buy the beverage to drink it but instead they wanted people to also fall in love with the brand. By having these goals in mind, the marketing team was able to narrow down their focus and it allowed them to track their successes.

One factor of success was an increase in sales from the number of cases sold compared to previous years along with the individual units of the new, personalized cans/bottles sold.

Another secondary metric would measure the overall amount of social media mentions and conversations, which was made easier with the trackable hashtag #ShareACoke.

Coca-Cola made sure that they aligned their social media campaign strategy with their overall business goals for “Share A Coke” and their brand as a whole.

https://mayecreate.com/blog/3-marketing-lessons-from-the-share-a-coke-campaign/

KPIs best fit tracking the goals identified

Brand Awareness

a. Brand awareness is an essential goal to measure. It’s important for current and potential customers to be aware of the brand. The KPI that would best fit would be to track impressions and the audience growth rate. Then I’d be able to determine the campaign’s reach.

Before you can generate a lead or secure a sale, a person needs to become aware of your company. By increasing brand awareness through social media, you’re adding more people to the very top of the funnel.

Community building

With everyone sharing pictures of their personalized bottles on social media, it would be best to use a KPI to track the number of followers. This would build a bigger community and encourage more shares and mentions.

By increasing the number of active followers, your social media accounts have you bringing in more eyes to view relevant content and offers.

https://www.marketingweek.com/coke-uses-ads-to-thank-consumers-for-share-a-coke-success/

Coca-Cola changed the game with #ShareACoke. They brought out a powerful message of community. The campaign was driven by user-generated content (UGC). It brought nostalgia with the feelings associated with personalization.

By the end of the campaign, the “Share a Coke” campaign increased sales and introduced Coke to a generation that saw the soda as “out of date.” Within the first year alone, Coke reported over 500,000 uses of the hashtag #ShareACoke. They also reported that consumers shared over 6 million virtual Coke bottles, and they gained over 25 million Facebook followers as a direct result of the campaign itself.

I can learn from the successes of the “Share a Coke” campaign! The campaign is a great marketing example and shows us that leveraging social media effectively really works.