Coca-Cola, one of the world’s most iconic brands, needed to retain its relevance with teens in Australia. Teens were reducing consumption over time and we also weren’t recruiting the next generation of Coke drinkers. A short and long-term issue for the business. Research identified where the problem originated: teens simply didn’t feel Coke was ‘speaking’ their language. It didn’t feel like it was a relevant brand for them because Coke was everywhere, for everyone and always the same. We recognised that the communications idea had to do something big to make teens feel as though Coke was especially for them. Coca-Cola also has a huge strength in their Owned assets and with our research proving that TV would not be an effective channel in reaching teens, we needed an idea that could leverage these assets to fuel a sustainable connections eco-system.
Planning & Execution
We wanted to earn our target's love, not buy it, so for the first time in over ten years, Coke didn’t have a TV campaign on-air for summer. Instead, we brought colour to teen-populated areas via innovative OOH executions across the country that allowed teens to interact and play with the coloured cans themselves. Understanding the way teens consume content, we created over 70 original pieces of colourful content to be seeded online in relevant environments. This was a huge departure from Coke’s traditional broadcast TVC approach but to change to way teens thought about us, we needed to change the way we connected with them. We were also active in social channels. However, in this environment, rather than communicate with them directly from brand to consumer, we used a credible third party to spread our colourful message, enlisting YouTube celebrities, Instagram stars, and teen bands to show off our amazing coloured cans. With all this noise in market around the coloured cans, we had still never said a word about the cans actually being codes. Importantly, we let teens figure that out and spread the message themselves, and we made our audience a communication channel, which was integral to our success.
Effectiveness / Results
838,428 codes were unlocked, an 800% increase over forecast.
47 Million earned impressions
8,750,000 cans were sold, 27% increase on forecast.
7% increase in consumption