John Pemberton's Coca-Cola Campaign

Coca-Cola is a carbonated soft drink, it is manufactured by The Coca-Cola Company located in Atlanta, Georgia, USA (More commonly known from its abbreviated form Coke). John Pemberton first invented it as a patent medicine. During the 20th century, Coca-Cola was acquired by Asa Griggs Candler, who through clever marketing made Coke the most dominating soft drink in the beverage industry. The name Coca-Cola is derived from its two ingredients, kola nuts, which consists of caffeine, and coca leaves. Till today, the formula of Coca-Cola remains a secret, although there have been many recipes and experiments that have been published.

The Coca-Cola Company have introduced other varieties of Coke, the most prominent one being Diet Coke, with others

The ‘Share A Coke’ campaign had successfully taken off in other territories previously so the brand adapted this campaign in the US to the teenage audience in order to show them how ‘fun’ it was to get a bottle of Coke with your own name on it. Two elements differentiated this campaign from similar campaigns ran in different territories. Firstly, the packaging was of integral importance as there was evidence that stated teenagers were not buying the product so they had to work with the product to develop a feature that would draw the audience to the product and in turn make them buy it. Secondly, the interactive hashtag #ShareaCoke created a depth and breadth of content and ways for teens to get involved and use the ever expanding realm of social media to amplify the idea. The success of the campaign was in black and white with results stating that 1.25 million more teens tried a Coke during the following summer and sales of participating Coca-Cola packages rose by an incredible 11% in the US. ‘Share a Coke’ in the US was more successful in driving sales than in any previous territory that had run the

But how? By stripping things back to basics and analysing how people connect and develop a relationship they realised that it is often initiated with the trading of names. Coca Cola took this initiative and knew that there is nothing more personal than your name. That is where the ‘Share a Coke’ concept was born: take the Coca-Cola brand name off 500ml bottles and replace it with 250 of the most common teen names of that time, a simple, powerful idea that would create a relationship between teens and Coca-Cola. They had concrete evidence from running the ‘Share a Coke’ campaign aimed at a particular audience in other territories that they could get teens to buy a bottle of Coke with their own name on it. A key factor noted when developing the campaign was to increase sales further ,they could encourage teens to purchase and share bottles with their friends’ names on them and not just bottles with their own individual names on them. In order to propel Coke sales, they needed to ignite the nation’s teens to share a Coke. There were two major elements that differentiate this campaign from others previous. Firstly, packaging played a pivotal role in this campaign. Secondly, social was at the heart of the campaign right from the start, as sharing is a very social behaviour. The hub of the campaign was the hashtag #ShareaCoke. They created a depth and