Happy Birthday Coca-Cola!
Summary of Coca-Cola’s 125th Birthday Campaign
It was just 125 years ago that John S. Pemberton created the first Coca-Cola in Atlanta, GA. To celebrate 125 years of Coke, the company has created a year long advertising campaign focusing on 125 days of summer fun that kicked off Saturday, May 7. The kick-off concert featured several popular artists including Kelly Clarkson, Natasha Bedingfield, and Ne-Yo and was streamed live for the whole world to see. The company created an entire website devoted to the streaming of the concert and fans posted comments on the streaming video page as well as the Coca-Cola Facebook page.
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=197793080263004
In addition to the kick-off concert, Coke has created buzz through social media. Known for having fun and colorful commercials, the company has posted anniversary celebration ads to YouTube. The success of Coke commercials has prompted others, including Marketing Week, to write entire articles about the history of Coca-Cola ads. The twitter handle #Coke125 was created to announce Coke evens and news for the 125th anniversary and Facebook is also used to discuss and announce Coke 125 events.
Coke is giving away prizes for 125 days and free magnets on coke boxes. Coke employees are also participating in the festivities by volunteering for a day of service. The company will also have special coke rewards programs, the first is for busy moms and the second is for teens, to tie in Coke with summer fun. A special Tagline, “125 years of sharing happiness,” will be used for all commercials and advertisements. In conjunction with the anniversary tagline, Coke will create commemorative glasses and store displays as well as a special 1.25 liter bottle of cola.
To involve consumers, Coke is using “Retro Poster Maker” to insert customer’s faces into retro Coke ads (or posters that look like Coke ads). All of the iconic Coke images, commercials, jingles, and bottles are being featured on news blogs, websites, and video blogs. The 125th anniversary campaign is an entire integrated marketing campaign that highlights everything that people love about Coke as well as things you never knew about Coke.
Reaction to Coca-Cola’s 125th Birthday Campaign
Coke has done a pretty good job so far. The concert page and Facebook pages reveal that the public really enjoyed the concert and consumers were posting happy birthday messages to coke in several different languages. Clearly the campaign is reaching a lot of different kind of people and getting them excited.
Involving employees in a day of service is Coke’s way of demonstrating a commitment to social responsibility. During the entire 125 day summer push, and the year long campaign employees were only mentioned as having to do with 1 day of the festivities. I found this to be a bit odd as I am sure they are a part of many more of the campaign activities. Although I feel that Coke has done a pretty good job of advertising the 125th anniversary, I still feel that they could have done better. The issue is very easy to understand when you read the press release from the organization. It seems as if the campaign for the anniversary has too many moving parts and it is difficult to fit it all into one press release. The press release is very long and a little complicated, but it still touches on all the aspects of importance; how the customer will be celebrated, how the employees will be celebrated, and how the company will get the word out.
http://www.thecoca-colacompany.com/dynamic/press_center/2011/05/125-years-young.html
If I were changing the campaign I would have announced it earlier and made sure to let campaign information leak out slowly over time. That way people could get excited about it over a longer period of time and not feel overwhelmed by the entire campaign. At the same time, when consumers go to the store and they are bombarded with Coke’s 125th anniversary image and tagline they will definitely take notice.
