Campaign: A great new spin on a classic Coke story

This new spin on the famed ‘Share a Coke’ campaign is a well-thought-out effort that shows mindfulness of many of the essential elements of successful advertising – perhaps most significantly, utilising both fresh concepts and tried, trusted formulae in a balanced manner, says Simon Hyslop.

Building on the success of the ‘Share a Coke’ campaign shows an understanding of the importance of taking account of past successes and the factors that made them popular, in order to be continuously mindful of what customers enjoy seeing; the drive to add a fresh and original spin to the concept shows awareness of the fact that working off past successes should not entail simply recycling previously successful concepts.

The campaign itself displays admirable regard for paying attention to the preferences of customers and for being mindful of their individuality. The base concept of named cans, and of basing these cans off popular names, reflects an understanding on the part of Coca-Cola of how customers appreciate being treated as individuals, and might, perhaps, be considered a sort of logical extension of the current growth of increasingly direct target marketing – a campaign that targets individual customers as much as it is possible for a worldwide brand to do so.

Meanwhile, the effort to build upon the success of the ‘Bobby’ commercial, and to extend the concept of the ‘Share a Coke’ campaign into printing phrases rather than just names, is a strong demonstration of taking advantage of the success of old concepts to build up new, fresh ones. Moreover, the fact that the latter idea was based upon observations of customer activity shows an admirable desire to make considerations of the preferences of ordinary customers and to make an effort to shape the brand into something that customers wish to see.

Overall, the innovative ‘Share a Coke’ campaign, and the resourceful manner in which its successful elements are utilised in an original way, are, I feel, a reflection of the versatility of Coca-Cola. The brand has not become any less relevant in all its 128 years, and while this may be partially attributed to the consistently strong market for soft drinks, it is clearly in great part due to the willingness of the brand to consistently adapt to its demographic, which, though broad, undergoes persistent changes as trends, generations, and society at large shift.

Obviously, the fact that the current success of the ‘Share a Coke’ campaign is itself likely a trend, and that it will need to be phased out in due time and replaced with a fresh concept; but as mentioned, Coca-Cola has always shown itself to be highly adaptable to trends. – Simon Hyslop