If you want to focus on a company with a long history and need to learn a lot of marketing knowledge, who is better to learn from than Coca-Cola?
Coca-Cola has been reminding us since its creation in 1886 to drink Coca-Cola, and now it is encouraging billions of people to be happy each day. One thing that has remained the same throughout the history of Coca-Cola is the innovative marketing campaign that has brought Coca-Cola and its products to the world. The advertising history of Coca-Cola is full of famous marketing campaigns, which rank among the most effective marketing campaigns in the world. Here are some of my favorite Coca-Cola campaigns that capture the essence of the Coca-Cola brand and provide an excellent content marketing strategy for the rest of us to follow.
World Cup Campaign
As the official sponsor of the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil, Coca-Cola has an excellent opportunity to market to thousands of football and football fans, who will closely follow the event. The “World Cup” campaign was created to celebrate the unified benefits of people’s love for a sport. Coca-Cola has outstandingly presented a realistic and fascinating story in this campaign. Especially when compared with Pepsi’s advertisement in the 2014 World Cup.
We especially like this advertising campaign because it is not just a great story. Coca-Cola had taken over 1 million fans from over 90 different countries to the World Cup. Anyone can make an exciting fictional video (it may even be challenging to do), but I think the real power of Coca-Cola in this campaign lies in the brand’s commitment to achieving this goal.
What can we learn from this campaign:
Don’t just tell a story, but a story. If you want to create an inspiring campaign that will truly move people, you also need to find a way to make the story happen in real life. Participate in your community or find ways to show how your customers give back to their customers.
Of course, not all of us have Coca-Cola’s business scope or budget. However, by learning some of the excellent marketing activities they have created, we can learn how to become marketers and advertisers better than we are now. Even Coca-Cola realized the value of learning from others and accepting new ideas.
On March 23, 2015, the brand invited ten different worldwide agents to put forward ideas for the next global promotion. Although their current “happiness” campaign is still doing well, they are always looking to improve and drive growth. There is no doubt that this contributes to the success of their advertising, and it is a worthy type of goal for any business to want to achieve.
Always Coca-Cola Campaign
This may be one of the most famous marketing activities ever. To permanently imprint the polar bear in the company image of Coca-Cola, the “Always Coca-Cola” campaign started in 1993, when Coca-Cola decided to try out computer animation. Among the 27 advertisements made for the “Always Coca-Cola” advertising campaign, the most eye-catching is: the “Northern Lights” advertisement. It will immortalize the heart-pounding connection between Coca-Cola and the polar bear.
What can we learn from this campaign:
Most importantly, I think this classic Coca-Cola campaign should make all of us (as marketers) always willing to try new things. If Coca-Cola avoids using computer animation images to support hand-drawn animation, will the “Northern Lights” advertisement have a huge impact? I can’t say, but we think that the company’s decision to adopt the new technology helped its campaign reach new heights and had a more direct impact on those who have seen it. Even if you try something very different from the standard, keep your eyes open to find new opportunities to promote your brand.
Share Coke Campaign
In June last year, Coca-Cola launched the “Share Coca-Cola” campaign in the United States, using the 250 most common American millennial names to promote products to individual consumers. The advertising campaign seems to have been a considerable success among American audiences and gained huge traction within a short time when the advertisement was placed here.
According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, between June and July 2014, more than 125,000 social media posts cited the “Share Coca-Cola” campaign; according to the reports, 12% of the online conversations about Coca-Cola were about this particular campaign. There was a website that had shared move 354,000 virtual bottles of Coke. When we look at the Coca-Cola brand’s data in Google Trends, we can also see the success of the campaign.
After the event was launched in the United States, it has won more and more attention. In just three months from June to August, the number of Google searches for the search term “share Coke” in the United States increased significantly. However, it can better illustrate the campaign’s success because it also seems to have caused a surge in Google searches for terms such as “Coca-Cola” and “Coca-Cola” in the past three months, which is a powerful indicator of an effective advertising campaign.
When we look at the other search terms people use to search for “Share Coca-Cola” campaigns, we can also see the impact of the campaign by suddenly appearing words like “Coke name” and “Named Coke.” This data tells us that people who have seen the campaign but may not fully understand the campaign are actively seeking more information about “Share Coke” ads. Their willingness to find information about the event is a good indication of the possibility of their future interaction with the brand.
Share around the world
Of course, the “Share Coke” campaign is not only launched in the United States. The campaign is one of the most famous advertising campaigns in recent history. It started in Australia and New Zealand at the end of 2011. Its success convinced the brand that the campaign is worthy of being copied elsewhere in the world.
During the trial period in Australia, the consumption of Coca-Cola products by young Australians increased by 7%, and the campaign gained more than 18 million impressions through social media. Especially on Facebook, Coca-Cola’s page attracted 39% of followers, while page visitors surged by 870%.
The “Coca-Cola” campaign has expanded to 20 global markets, including those in the UK, China, and Brazil.
What can we learn from this campaign:
One of the reasons why this sport is so successful is that it directly attracts individual consumers. What better way to attract people’s attention than putting someone’s name directly on your product? Of course, for many companies, this is not a realistic strategy-not even a good strategy-but, it is essential that you always consider how you view your campaigns personally.
Another aspect of the impressive and effective advertisement is its ability to adapt to the narrative structure. In other words, this campaign provides unlimited possibilities for storytelling in advertising. And because storytelling ads may be more effective, it is a significant advantage for Coca-Cola. When designing your next campaign, please consider its storytelling potential as early as possible.
Although most companies do not have a budget or a way to get ideas from 10 different organizations, most companies can ask at least ten different employees. If your marketing efforts are usually limited to one department, consider having some new perspectives on your company’s image and strategy. Not all your employees have the skills to formulate and initiate activities fully, but they certainly know your company’s image and value.
Asking for advice from one or two people can be simple, or it can be as complicated as a company-wide competition for who can come up with the best new campaign idea. Either way, as these famous campaigns have shown us, it won’t help to get the people who know your brand best to participate and inform others about it.
