This is a case study about Coca-Cola's Project Highjack. Project Hijack was an on-going market research online community and co-creation workshop with hundreds of young people created to do one thing: get under the skin of young shoppers. Esomar 2010 Presentation

1. Project hijack
Step changing our dialogue with youth
Beth Corte-Real, Coca-Cola Great Britain and Ireland, UK
Philip McNaughton, Face, UK

3. business challenge
in 2008 Coca-Cola GB&I
identified a big challenge
what young people* told us
they were doing was
different to what they were
actually doing in market
needed to get under the
skin of this audience to get
insights that lead to
solutions with impact in the
market
* male & female aged 16-20

4. as well as getting under the skin
of young people, we also needed
to get under the skin of the
stakeholder audience
so the name hijack was chosen –
to signify that we wanted to
why
‘hijack’ the stakeholder team’s
expectations and presumptions
about a youth audience hijack?
and to signify that this project
would aim to deliver direct, hard-
hitting messages about the
challenges that faced the brand

5. research challenges
real time, their world
stakeholder engagement
Coca-Cola ecosystem –
bottlers and brand teams
breadth of coverage and
depth of insight
action orientated
needed yesterday

6. how to understand the world of becomes this….. In just 2
young people, when this….. years
and working with young people in
research can be a little like this…..

7. originally intended as a standalone piece
so in 2008 Hijack of research intended to get deep
understanding into a youth audience and
1 was born develop a range of solutions for engaging
young people with Coca-Cola brands
has become an ongoing insight platform
still running in allowing Coca-Cola to engage with young
people in research in an real time, social
2010 (Hijack 3) & participatory way to help land real
business results

8. hijack in pictures
video diaries
online community online focus groups
stakeholder workshops
real time mobile phone social media analysis
status updates co-creation workshop

9. hijack in numbers
200 young people involved in the project (and counting)
3 initial phases of hijack, which has grown to become the
number of years hijack has been running
5026 forum posts and blog entries
16 ultra-creative young people who co-created with the
stakeholder team

10. and the most important number of all
infinity …. or the idea of an ongoing dialogue with young people, rather
than a hit and run project that is just about numbers of groups,
participants

11. consumer/shopper principles
real conversations = real
insights
listen to young people talking to each other,
not to us
playtime all the time
‘game’ orientated & multi-media
ongoing and real time
capture real behaviour over time, not edited
highlights
create together for better
insight
work with them, don’t ask questions at them

12. stakeholder principles
limited formal debriefing
come on the journey or be left behind
removing filters
participate
findings straight to desktop
youth world straight to their world
borderless project scope
and outputs
business wide objectives, business wide
outputs

13. from insight to action (some tasters of things that Coca-Cola are
doing as a result of the hijack project)
on pack promotion
because young people
consistently told us they
needed something
focused, simple,
everyone wins & in their
currency

14. from insight to action
helping develop a brand
platform
coming from video &
written diaries which
helped us understand
when they were most
engaged with the category

15. from insight to action
shopper strategy & the
vital role of getting it
right in marketplace
because all the shopper
video diaries showed us
how many and how often
young people changed their
minds at the point of
purchase

16. from insight to action
reawakened belief in the
full range of pack
formats
because we saw just how
young people loved and
engaged emotionally with
all our pack formats – not
just 500ml PET

17. coherent audience-centred approach that cuts
across brands & types of output
youth
music fashion
trends IMC
extreme
tech
gaming

18. an approach designed to help step-change the business’
attitude towards research & consumer / shopper
consumers people
observation immersion
respondents partners
channels niche tailored
silos collaboration
one-hit adaptive

19. brand/
insight agency consumer
bottler
agency
consumer
brand/
insight
bottler

20. evolution
approach applied to
different audiences
expanded geographic
footprint
development of new
tools and approaches

21. Thank You