The Secret Behind Coca-Cola Marketing
Coca-Cola is for many the definitive soft drink. Popular worldwide, this caramel coloured soda can be found in 193/195 countries, with just North Korea and Cuba limiting it’s availability. First invented on the 8th May 1886 by Dr. John Pemberton in a small Atlanta-based pharmacy. In the first year, Pemberton sold just nine glasses of Coca-Cola a day for 5 cents a glass. Local soda fountains quickly heard the news about this new and interesting sparkling beverage and were the first establishments to provide the drink to the public. With 8 years of ever-increasing popularity and the desire to provide a portable option, Coca-Cola was first bottled in 1894.
126 years later in 2020, Coca-cola has expanded just ever so slightly, currently selling its products at an estimated rate of more than 1.9 billion servings a day. Equivalent to nearly 1 in 4 people buying a Coca-Cola owned product a day.
Artist’s rendering of Jacob’s Pharmacy in Atlanta, Georgia in 1886. Image credit: www.coca-cola.co.uk.
The Coca-Cola Company is one of the most recognised companies in the world and boasting the title of, “The world’s most valuable non-technology brand.” Currently valued at $80.83 billion(1), the company control more than half the global market in carbonated soft drinks as well as a substantial chunk of the somewhat larger non-carbonated segment. Within its portfolio, the company sells more than 500 beverage brands, such as; Fanta, Sprite, Dasani and Powerade (2). This massive brand umbrella possesses over 3,500 variants of drink spanning from sodas to bottled water to iced teas and coffees.
Despite an estimated 94% of the world’s population recognising the unmistakable red and white logo (3), nearly 10% of their revenue ($41 Billion) was spent on Advertising and marketing campaigns. As with many things in the world, ironically, the companies that have the highest brand recognition possess the highest budget for their advertising and public image. Luckily this rather hefty budget allows coke and their marketing team to experiment and get creative with Coke’s image. Providing the opportunity to remind us why they are as successful as they are.
If nearly everyone recognises Coca-Cola’s image, how do you advertise further?
What is the Coca-Cola brand built upon?
How do they try and persuade us to buy their products?
Coca-Cola spends a large chunk of it’s marketing budget trying to nudge our brains into associating their brand with a positive emotion. They don’t need to tell us how tasty their product is. They have far surpassed that stage.
Cola-Cola’s 2016 Christmas Campaign
For many, the arrival of the iconic ‘Holidays Are Coming’ Coca-Cola truck is a highlight of the slowly growing excitement before Christmas. First started in the 1920s in the form of shopping-related ads in magazines, a century later the interest in their Christmas campaign shows little sign of diminishing. Playing on a every bodies love for Christmas and all the positive connotation with it, this is a recipe for an engaging positive campaign.
The focus of this year ‘A Coke For Christmas’ ad follows a young boy who aims to spread joy by gifting Coca-Cola to those who are making Christmas a reality, including a dad, a shop assistant, and even the big man himself – Santa Claus
The commercial itself closely follows coke’s primarily principles of their advertising. Rather than attempting to sell a beverage they are focused on selling an abstract positive concept such as; happiness, family and sharing. As we can see Coca-Cola have mastered the art of selling these non-concrete conception. Their artful execution of this campaign can be seen in their ability to resonate with everyone, attaching these emotions to the; people working during Christmas, the family and children themselves.
This is of course a multi-pronged campaign, with a roll out of this modified formula adopted across a range of channels. Traditionally; video, print and physical advertising were the focal point of Cokes festive commercials, however 2016 saw the addition of Coke TV, the social media hashtags and even a coke emoji.
Coca-Cola's Sharing Can - Singapore
The “Share happiness” strategy has been one of the fundamental pillars of Coca-Cola’s advertising machine, we have seen this across multiple previous campaigns such as the “Coke Hug Me Machine” and the hugely successful De-branding tactic.
However the Coca-Cola may have successfully created the most literal rendition of sharing a coke with their “Sharing Can” campaign. As part of the pilot project, Coke distributed its “Sharing Can”, a regular looking can of Coke that could be twisted to become two separate mini cans, allowing probably one of the easiest method of sharing coke on the move.
Targeting, heavy traffic districts in Singapore, thirsty pedestrians who bought a can from these inconspicuous machines were documented and filmed for their authentic reaction. This campaign provided coke with video evidence of the purest possible form of surprise, happiness and respect for fellow their fellow Singaporean.
Coca-Cola’s Debranding Campaign– Your name / Our name
As I mentioned briefly earlier, arguably the most successfully “share happiness” campaign would be their debranded drinks.
Marketing Director Lucie Austin and her team within Coca-Cola South Pacific branch were delivered a 151-word creative brief that gave them free reign to –
“Deliver a truly disruptive idea that would make headlines and capture the country’s attention.”
The resulting campaign, known as “Share a Coke” may be one of Coke’s strongest marketing moves. The idea to remove Coca-Cola’s logo and swap it out with 150 of the most popular names in Australia covered nearly 42% of the population and was intended to inspire shared moments of happiness.
Almost overnight, the response to the campaign was overwhelmingly positive. Thousands of Instagram posts, Tweets and Facebook posts were uploaded with people finding their personalised bottles. Unaffiliated celebrities were soon to follow, buying bottles and broadcasting them immediately.
Coke sold over 250 million named bottles and cans in a nation of just under 23 million people. This staggering result led to the rapid adoption of the campaign across the world, reaching more than 70 countries. As the campaign spread across the world over 17,000 names were used, including generic nicknames and titles, such as; Mum, Dad and Mate.
>870% Increase on Cokes Facebook.
Young adult consumption increased 7%
18,300,000-plus media impressions.
378,000 custom Coke cans.
These new additional titles, were carefully selected to provide a greater incentive to give a can to someone you care about rather than enjoying it yourself. Yet further reinforcement of Coke’s core principles.
The debranding campaign and it’s major success could be argued to rely solely on the ability to relate to the consumer at the eye level. Lucie Austin suggests that we respond so strongly to this campaign as our name is one of the most personal things we possess. It’s our identity, it’s who we are.
Companies around the world across every industry there is tries to relate to its consumers. However this campaign may be the closest to a personal approach as it gets.
A campaign that capitalises on self-expression, friendship and emotion.