Marketing Lessons from Coca-Cola’s #ShareaCoke Campaign

The Coca-Cola ‘Share a Coke’ campaign some years ago featured the personalisation of the brand with people’s names.  In the UK, the company made use of the 150 most popular names.  Each of the names carried a short message along with a hashtag, #shareacoke to encourage consumers to promote the brand online.

Originally trialled in Australia in 2011, the campaign saw a significant increase in young adult consumption by 7% and also earned a staggering 18,300,000 plus media impressions and traffic on and traffic on the Coke Facebook site went up by 870%.

Nigeria was definitely not left out of this buzz as it is a big market that cannot be ignored by any brand in the world.  The campaign witnessed a tsunami of positive responses from Nigerians who, despite struggling from the bites of the 2015 recession, still found the wherewithal to purchase their personalised coke brand. Here are some marketing lessons that are still apt from the #shareacoke campaign:

Personal connection with your audience matters

Show me someone that dislikes something that is personal and unique to him or her and I will show you a man that is dissembling. Consumers have an emotional connection with brands that project something that they hold dear, and the name is just a wonderful way of building a psychological connection with consumers.  Studies show that 78% of consumers feel that brands that create unique and personalised content are more interested in building a relationship with them (Hanley-Wood Business Media, 2013).

Let consumers drive your content

The #shareacoke campaign allowed vast numbers of people to buy and share the brand both online and offline. This is a great strategy that reinforces brand perception and the use of social media to influence and alter consumer experience for increased sales. Coca-Cola was not the first to use this strategy, but it has by far achieved huge success by encouraging consumers to own the experience and share it as well.

Within the first year of the campaign, more than 500,000 photos were shared using the hashtag #shareacoke. Also, consumers created and shared more than 6 million virtual Coke bottles by September 2014. Similarly, Coca-Cola witnessed a surge in their Facebook followers by 25 million new followers.

However, consumers will only drive the success of your content if you give them a compelling reason to do so. For Coca-Cola, it was that feeling of connection with a brand that personalised their names on their beverages.

Are you considering creating a marketing strategy that sells like Coca-Cola’s? TRW Consult, Nigeria’s Number #1 marketing communications agency is here for you. Contact us today.