Dive Brief:
- As of May 1 and lasting through the summer, Coca-Cola Co. is bringing back its Share a Coke promotion, wherein 1,000 of the most common first names will appear on hundreds of millions of Coca-Cola, Diet Coke, and Coke Zero 20-ounce bottles—quadruple the number of names used in 2014.
- During last year's Share a Coke promotion, Coca-Cola saw more than 19% growth for sales of its 20-ounce bottles—the largest growth year over year that the company has seen for that size of packaging.
- The best-selling bottle name for the 2014 promotion was Chris, and this year, Coca-Cola expects the bestsellers to be Michael and Jessica.
Dive Insight:
The move appears to at least in part be driven by Coca-Cola's aspirations to encourage social media engagement. The company believes that some consumers, particularly their targeted younger audience, will want to share photos of themselves drinking the Coca-Cola products with their first names on them. This hope has merit. The last time Coca-Cola introduced this advertising stunt, word of mouth promotion had Share a Coke as the No. 1 global trending topic last July 29.
Coca-Cola has also been in the market for a new global campaign, after axing its previous "Make It Happy" marketing effort.
Jennifer Healan, Coca-Cola's group director of integrated marketing content, said of the new bottles, "Teens love to be famous. To teens, it's all about me, me, me. Think of all the selfies. Now, you can take a selfie with your name on a Coke bottle," USA TODAY reported.
