Case Study on Coca-Cola's "Share a Coke" Campaign | Môn Consumer behavior - Trường Đại học Quốc tế, Đại học Quốc gia Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh

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THE WORLD SHARES A COKE
The “Share a Coke” campaign has been one of Coca- Cola’s most successful
marketing campaigns of all time and has revitalized consumer enthusiasm for the
Coca-Cola brand across the globe. Its beginnings were a humble 151-word abstract
in Australia that resulted in 250 of the most common first names for teens and
Millennials being printed on labels of soda bottles with the imperative for consumers
to “share” a coke with someone with those names. Before this campaign, 50 percent
of the young people in Australia had never even tasted a Coke. As Lucie Austin, a
Coca-Cola brand executive said:
"We gave consumers an opportunity to express themselves through a bottle of Coke,
and to share the experience with someone else. The campaign capitalized on the
global trend of selfexpression and sharing, but in an emotional way"
This small 2011 Australian campaign was hugely successful and ultimately ended
up being an excellent test market for the “Share a Coke” concept. Since then, Coca-
Cola has expanded it to over 70 countries.
The campaign came to the United States in the summer of 2014 with a limited release
of the 500 most common Millennial first names. It was not long before consumers
were scouring convenience stores and groceries for their own names and those of
their friends and loved ones. The U.S. campaign was an amazing success and
resulted in an increase in sales of Coca-Cola products for the first time in a 10-year
period, while sales of competitor brands Pepsi and Dr Pepper Snapple remained negative.
Since then, the “Share a Coke” campaign has expanded in the U.S. each subsequent
year. In 2015, 1,000 names were made available. Eventually, Coca-Cola provided a
website where consumers could order personalized Coca-Cola products with certain
hard-tofind names. In 2016, “Share a Coke” was back, but with the twist of printing
popular song lyrics on the bottles. In 2017, Coca-Cola expanded the “Share a Coke”
campaign in multiple ways. The personalized products were expanded to Coke Life
and Cherry Coke, in addition to the previously offered Coca-Cola Classic, Coke
Zero, and Diet Coke. The list was further expanded to include more than 77 percent
of the first names of Americans between the ages of 13 and 34. Also, in line with
the musical theme from the previous year, Coca-Cola produced over 1,000
personalized jingles, from 25 different musical tracks and nine different singers.
Consumers could find jingles for names like Johnny and Megan on the CocaCola lOMoAR cPSD| 59078336
website. The jingles covered a wide range of musical genres from country western
to reggae. Another innovation was printing the names of vacation hot spots
including Hawaii, Bali, Ibiza, and Miami. Consumers could enter a code from their
Coca-Cola products in a dedicated website to win trips to those locations.
Coca-Cola has made various adaptations to best fit local and cultural preferences in
different countries. According to Ajay Bathija, Marketing Director of Coca-Cola India:
“We did not want to copy/paste the global campaign and decided to add an Indian flavour to it.
Our consumer research showed that relationships in the country are becoming more
informal than before and we wanted to highlight it. Our study also showed that many
teenagers in India perceive their relationships differently; for example, the word
“Dad” means not just an ATM but also their champ to them. This campaign is
talking about the changing relationships of young India”
Therefore, in India, some labels included local slang for parents, such as Papa, Didi,
and Bhai, along with popular names across 11 different languages spoken in India.
In South Africa, consumers were having trouble finding their names due to such a
wide variety of local tribes within the country. As a solution, Coca-Cola introduced
voice-activated vending machines that allowed consumers to print their own names
on 200 ml cans. These innovative machines caught on and produced cans at a rate
of about six cans per minute, roughly double the international standard of three cans per minute.
Launched in Vietnam and spread to markets throughout ASEAN countries, with a
wide variety of languages, a focus was put on using emoticons on the bottles in a
variation of the campaign called “Share a Feeling.” Emoticons were thought to be a
universal language that young people can use to express themselves. According to
Pratik Thakar, head of Creative Content & Design Excellence, ASEAN & APAC:
“Emoticons have become a perfect sharing platform, sharing of human feelings. It
transcends language barriers and has pretty much become a part of popular culture
across most ASEAN markets”
In each country, Coca-Cola has used a quiet launch, which actually leads to more
word-of-mouth (WOM) sharing because consumers are more likely to spread
information they perceive to have discovered on their own before others. lOMoAR cPSD| 59078336
Promotional samples are sent to local opinion leaders, including celebrities like
American actress Emma Roberts, and Bollywood actor Tahir Raj Bhasin, to create
buzz. The name of the campaign itself, “Share a Coke,” is a powerful call to action
itself. The hashtag #ShareaCoke boosted the spreadability of the campaign as
consumers would often post selfies with the bottles with their names on the label.
For example, 25 million new followers liked Coca-Cola on Facebook in the first
year of the campaign. By 2016, over 600,000 pictures were shared on Instagram with the hashtag #ShareaCoke.
With such great success of the “Share a Coke” campaigns, Coca-Cola gives no
indication that the campaign expansions will slow or stop any time soon. This will
be an interesting case to watch unfold into the future. Questions:
1. Chapter 11 discusses the three components of attitude(cognitive, affective, and
behavioral). Which of these components does Coca-Cola focus on in the “Share a
Coke” campaign? Does your response change based on the context of the country
in which the campaign is being used? For example, before the initial Australian
2011 campaign, roughly half of the young people had never tried Coca-Cola,
whereas most people in the U.S. had tried Coca-Cola many times before the
campaign was launched there. Explain.
2. Chapter 11 discusses sources characteristics, and particularly celebrity sources.
a. How did Coca-Cola use celebrity sources?
b. Why would these celebrity endorsers be effective?
3. Chapter 12 discusses possessions and the extended self. Discuss how the “Share
a Coke” campaign incorporated the concept of self to encourage sales of its products.