I think everyone at one point in time noticed the “Share a Coke” campaign launched by Coca-cola. Maybe they did not know the name of the campaign – but there was huge hype about the fact that you could possibly find your own name on a Coke bottle. The message was simple: share a Coke with a friends name on it.
The Business objectives are quite clear: to increase sales and get people drinking Coke (whether it is regular, diet, or zero).
The Public Relations (PR) objectives are not as clear though. Perhaps the PR objective was to reintroduce the same product with new packaging. After further research on interviews done with employees from Coca-cola, it is clear they were trying to “capitalize on the global trend of self-expression and sharing” (you can read full article here).
The strategy of this campaign could have been to create a movement that was memorable by tracking how many people visited Coca-cola’s website to create their own virtual bottle. It could have also been to increase the use of social media using hashtags.
The tactics were possibly to get people on social media sharing their images of them with their names on the Coke bottle. Even if the person did not originally drink Coke, they bought the product which in the end is the business objective. There was a lot of press coverage for this campaign as well.
Overall, this campaign had a huge response in all countries it was introduced in. It was successful because it tapped into the aspect of sharing and people loved the novelty of having their name on a bottle.
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