Coca-cola is a marketing giant. Coke has presented the world with exciting, creative marketing campaigns and September 2011’s Share-a-Coke campaign was no exception.

They realized there was an opportunity within the global market, as studies showed that 50% of Australian teens and young adults had never tried a coke. Coke saw the need to reconnect with this geographic (Australia) and demographic (teens and young adults) segment of their market as they were not performing to their standards.

The Custom Can

As a young adult, I believe they approached the targeted market in the right manner. By reaching out via tweaking the iconic label was simple, but proved very effective. It was genius in the sense that it offered customization and a positive experience to consumers while also creating brand awareness. Creating this brand awareness plays a large role in future soft drink purchasing. Buying a soft drink is a very limited involvement task where consumers often base their purchasing on brand recognition and past psychological experience. The only question I have with personalizing the bottles is how would the concept work in a vending machine? You can’t exactly reach in to find your name…

Making heavy use of social media and creating an online platform to “share a coke” for the campaign was also a smart move and ultimately lead to its viral explosion. Being part of generation Y, we are highly susceptible to social media and tends, so by utilizing these technological advancements, it helped position Coke as an innovative and “hip” company.

In all, I see this marketing campaign as an effective way to reach their target market. After all, I found myself “sharing and liking” the Facebook page and wondering why we couldn’t we get personalized Coke in Canada? Adding to the Share-A-Coke phenomena that Coca-Cola created.