When Coca-Cola first launched its 'Share a Coke' campaign back in 2011, it was touted as an industry first in personalisation. At the time, the novel idea of finding your name (or a friend's) on a Coca-Cola bottle felt fun and delivered strong performance by reversing sales declines.
First launched in Australia, the campaign expanded to over 70 countries, with 150 million+ personalised bottles sold worldwide, and 25 million new Facebook followers gained.
Fast forward to 2025, and Coca-Cola decided to revive the Share a Coke campaign in the ASEAN and South Pacific region. This time reimagined for Gen Z, with the aim of putting friendships in the spotlight and placing the collective over the individual in a nod to this generation's longing for authentic connections in a hyper-digital world.
This case study examines how Coca-Cola, partnering with Ogilvy, tailored an iconic campaign for Gen Z, proving personalisation and real-world bonds matter more than ever in digital-first culture. It delivered 99% positive net social sentiment on Meta across ASEAN and South Pacific, plus recruited 496,000 users who signed up on the website to customise and order cans.
Background and aim
The main objective was to revive Share a Coke but make it more relevant for Gen Z, by tapping the growing tension around their offline disconnection and lack of authentic physical connections. This created social change by enabling them to share personalised Coke bottles with names or nicknames as appreciation for loved ones.
Campaign Asia spoke with Tanya Cinco, director of content, Coca-Cola TM, ASEAN and South Pacific, and Nikhil Panjwani, executive creative director Ogilvy at WPP OpenX, to understand how they reinvigorated Share a Coke for Gen Z and sparked behavioural change.
"Share a Coke was launched in Australia in 2011," says Cinco. "At that time, the thrust was really about getting names on the cans. The packs were shared as a personalised token. For the 2025 campaign, we kept the iconicity of Share a Coke from 2011, where the emotional core was having a deep personal connection with anyone who sees their name or a loved one's name on the pack. But we evolved it to be more relevant for Gen Z."
Strategy and execution
For a fresh spin, Share a Coke 2025 expanded names to over 5,000 localised, culturally resonant options, including Gen Z nicknames, terms of endearment, and colloquialisms. These were available at supermarkets, convenience stores, and interactive pop-up hubs regionwide for live personalisation.
All execution partnered with Ogilvy at WPP OpenX, including an online platform for visualising and printing custom labels, even for uniquely spelled names. "What was exceptional about the Share a Coke campaign 2025 was the hyperlocalisation," says Panjwani. "Even in Malaysia, you could find names like 'Abang Sado', which is slang for a muscular man, or 'Geng Da Lulu', a humorous reference to a group of friends who are delusional. In every market, we chose eight to 10 obvious names but left room to play with colloquialisms. It was a challenge because every market brought its own nuance."
Coca-Cola collaborated with local teams for market-specific names, from Australia's Thomas and Charlotte to Vietnam's unique conventions.
"That was actually one of the key considerations that we really had to take into consideration when planning for the names to be printed," says Cinco. "We knew that ASEAN and South Pacific is quite a diverse region, so it's not a one size fits all sort of thing. So we really made sure that we coordinated with the local teams to ensure that we represent the market properly."
Awareness blended online and offline: pop-ups in Gen Z hotspots, high-impact OOH, KOLs, and Instagrammable photo booths for seamless social sharing.
"It was a mix we call 'brave and boundless' experiences; experiential ideas," says Panjwani. "We had pop-ups where Gen Zs hang out so they could personalise names. You would get a physical can but also have a chance to share that on social media. It was an online and offline play supported by high-media out-of-home advertising and KOLs."
"We offered modules where they could personalise items and print their own names, and we also set up photo booths because Gen Z wants everything to be Instagrammable," adds Cinco. "This made the experience easily shareable online too, creating a full cycle that moves from online to offline and back online again."
KOLs amplified reach, like Philippines' girl group Beanie (Coke Studio partners) whose custom names went viral as a mini-campaign.
"One key learning across markets is that cultural relevance and credibility were amplified even more by using the right voices to promote Share a Coke," says Cinco. "That's where KOLs came in, such as Beanie, the hugely popular eight-member girl group in the Philippines who are genuine real-life friends. They perfectly represented the campaign because their audience knew about their inside jokes; we leveraged that to get them personalising names and sharing with friends."
Challenges
Cultural authenticity was paramount. Local teams ensured resonance over lazy generic names.
"We were careful to do due diligence to represent each market in the best way possible. The lazy option would have been to stick with the traditional 10 names, but the campaign smartly incorporated local colloquialisms instead," says Panjwani. "That required tough choices; for instance, some names were hilarious but resonated with fewer people, so we had to prioritise those with broader appeal."
No major hurdles arose, thanks to pre-launch groundwork like complex market-specific planning.
Results
The campaign reached 255 million digitally, with 43% positive impressions versus prior Coca-Cola Meta campaigns, 99% positive net social sentiment regionwide, 150,000+ custom cans and bottles produced in month one, and 496,000 website sign-ups for custom orders.
"Iconic campaigns still resonate as long as you reinvent them for a new generation," says Cinco. "For 'Share a Coke', the core was personalisation and human connection. We evolved it to allow Gen Zs to interact in a digital space while providing a means to authentically connect with friend groups."
"There is always the temptation to push things so far that people no longer recognise the original campaign," adds Panjwani. "Instead, stick to what has worked and find small ways to hack or remix within that framework. The real challenge is finding that measured nuance. It's like a remix, you can remix a song, but you still want to keep the classic at its core."
Source: Campaign Asia-Pacific
