Analysis of Coca-Cola's #Shareacoke campaign

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Sarah Heil
February 4, 2015
ARTS 224-001
Case Study 2
Coca-Cola’s #ShareACoke
Analysis
Section 1: Briefly summarize the situation described in the case. What were the challenges or
goals? They wanted to market the product as personalized and shareable. The campaign
originally started in Australia in 2011. The goal was to get people talking about Coke. A
challenge is that they were breaking the “rules” of traditional marketing (brand recognition and
brand loyalty) and replacing it with bringing people together and making them feel
extraordinary.
Section 2: Who is the target audience. Demographics, psychographics, and behavioral profile.
The audience is teens and millennials. The target is part of Generation C.
Hannah: Age 17, from Philadelphia, PA, has monogrammed bags, hats, shirts, etc. She gets
excited whenever she sees her name on anything, because personalization is a way of life, uses
Instagram to share her life experiences with friends.
Luke: Age 19, from Phoenix, AZ, avid Twitter user (storytelling), enjoys sharing YouTube
videos he enjoys with his friends.
Section 3: What were the objectives in the campaign? The objective was to get people talking
about Coke and the campaign by fans sharing their personalized bottles and cans on social
media. They wanted to reach teens and millennials who are all about personalizing, storytelling,
and sharing.

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Section 4: What is the campaigns strategy? Their campaign strategy is to personalize each 20 oz.
bottle or can of Coca-Cola by removing their logo and replacing it with one of the 250 most
common names in America. These can be accessed through virtual images or physical bottles or
cans.
Section 5: Describe the tactics used in the campaign to pursue the stated objectives? (ie. Print ad,
Facebook, TV Commercial) One of the tactics they used is the ability for fans to design their
own personalized virtual bottle and post it to Facebook, Twitter or any other social media. There
was also a tour of Coca-Cola where fans could personalize their own can or bottle through the
traveling kiosk. They encouraged their audience to use the hashtag #ShareaCoke for the chance
for their picture or story to be displayed on Coke billboards all over the country. They have the
Coca-Cola Freestyle mobile app which has a QR reader. Drink vending machines had a QR code
that would allow an individual to scan it through the Coca-Cola Freestyle app and receive a $1
off 20 oz. Coke coupon to share with their friend. They also used YouTube to promote the
campaign. One video posted starred YouTube sensation Cameron Dallas.
Section 6: Did the campaign work? What are your thoughts about the campaign? Where the
tactics appropriately chosen? Why or why not? After viewing social media numbers (posted
below) I believe this campaign worked. The campaign was very simple but they knew their
audience and how their audience “ticks”. What better way to reach consumers who love
personalization, storytelling, and sharing? They know their targets are connected on social
media, and that is exactly where they were, and they made their social media interactive,
shareable and personalized. The tactic for using a YouTube celebrity like Cameron Dallas is
great because millennials are more likely to find him credible than Hollywood celebrities.

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Instagram:
Posts: 374
Followers: 455k
Following: 694
#shareacoke: 587,703 posts
#shareacokewith: 51,782
Facebook:
Likes: 93,359,667
Skateboarding dog post received 50,964 total engagements
Twitter:
Tweets: 124K
Following: 67.8K
Followers: 2.85M
Favorites: 717
Lists:11
The week of July 29, 2014 the hashtag #ShareaCoke had over 80,000 mentions which can be
attributed to a tweet that also tagged a comedy show from the Philippians, and the YouTube
video starring Cameron Dallas.
Networked Insights found: “45% of consumer sentiment was outwardly positive. Only 5% was
overtly negative.”