Coke’s Secret To Social Marketing? Packaging

Coca-Cola’s latest packaging moves have been brilliant at generating earned social.

First things first, earned social is when fans organically post about a brand on social media. At Inside Social, we’re all about earned social. It’s the best marketing a brand can get–digital word of mouth recommendations. And it’s a great indicator of what will be effective in owned and paid marketing.

Back to Coke…earlier this summer, Coke rolled out 250 different labels with names (and fun nicknames) on them as part of their #shareacoke campaign. Pretty simple right? But guess what happened. People went crazy and the specific hashtag was shared over 125,000 times. What’s not counted there is all the sharing that took place without the hashtag, in emails, in text messages, etc. My mom even found my name and sent me a picture.

These vanity metrics are impressive and there’s numerous anecdotes I can share, but what really matters is whether or not the campaign drove sales. According to the WSJ, Coke sales jumped 2% during the campaign. It may not sound like much, but for a company like Coke that makes over $45 billion in annual revenue, a 2% bump is $900 million.

While a packaging move feels like the opposite of a social campaign, the best marketers know that social can’t be siloed. It needs to bleed throughout the entire company…and that includes packaging.

Lesson: Social must be integrated with other departments in the company. Social integration, especially earned social integration, amplifies campaigns (social or not) and allows fans to more authentically connect with each other and with the brand.

Now, the beverage giant is making their next move. And just like #shareacoke, it is brilliant. Diet Coke has created 2 million unique labels to represent the individuals that drink Diet Coke.

By making the bottles unique, every person will have an unexpected and “personalized” experience, two elements that contribute to whether or not something is share-worthy. While not entirely original (Absolut Unique), the scale, reach, and brand personality of Coke gives it a great platform to succeed.

Lesson: Personalization is an easy way to tap into the power of earned social. Simply by giving customers a unique, personal experience, people are more than happy to share.

Finally, match your social campaigns with your brand personality. There are many ways to incorporate earned social components in your marketing campaigns, but for optimal sharing, it must align with your brand’s personality and the experience your fans have with your brand. Coke is all about happiness and delivering a moment (or moments) of delight. The packaging and personalization does just that.

Coke’s Secret To Social Marketing? Packaging