Share a Coke Campaign

In the last few months there has been a growing trend for friends and colleagues to spam Twitter and Facebook feeds with pictures of Coca-Cola bottles and cans. As you probably already know, the world's largest beverage company has replaced its usual branding with 150 of the UK's most popular names. Each of these carried the hashtag #shareacoke to encourage users to promote the brand online.

The campaign was originally trialled in Australia in 2011 and produced some impressive results. Young adult consumption increased significantly, up by 7%. The campaign also earned a total of 18,300,000-plus media impressions, and traffic on the Coke Facebook site increased by 870%, with page likes growing by 39%.

Since the UK campaign was launched on 29 April, its proven to be just as big a hit in the UK. From a social perspective, Coca-Cola has seen itsFacebook community grow by 3.5% and globally by 6.8%. The hashtag has also been used 29,000 times on Twitter (Brandwatch, 2013). A study from YouGov in May this year, using its BrandIndex, highlighted that Coca-Cola had also increased its Buzz score, moving it from negative to positive. We'll have to wait and see if sales have increased, but here are lessons we can draw from this campaign.

Mass market penetration
Most campaigns that launch have a core target demographic in mind. Coca-Cola's campaign was no different, focusing on 18-25-year-olds. However, something that worked to the company's advantage was limited alienation. Any consumer aged between 13-60 could essentially take part without feeling excluded. Today's consumers want to feel unique, and giving users something affordable and personalised is a key way to succeed. Some may argue that certain groups were eliminated because the campaign was limited to 150 names, but you'll always have a degree of exclusion.

Personalisation
Everyone loves something that's personal and unique to him or her, even if it is just a drink. It has become very apparent that personalised content is a core focus right now – 78% of consumers feel that brands that create unique and personalised content are more interested in building a relationship with them (Hanley-Wood Business Media, 2013).

A recent study by Intent HQ also found that more than half of Britain's social media users are willing to share personal information to receive personalised content. If this isn't enough to focus on personalisation, what is?