Why is Summer The Perfect Time to "Share a Coke" With Your Favorite People?

Every year when the weather forecast starts to show signs of summer, the popular brand, The Coca-Cola Company realises their famous "Share a Coke" campaign. With this campaign, Coca-Cola releases limited edition bottles and cans of a variety of Coca-Cola flavors, displaying a variety of names and titles to encourage their consumers to "Share a Coke" with some of their favorite people.

When consumers see the famous bottles every year, they immediately start searching for their own names or the names of their loved ones. Because of this strategic message produced by Coca-Cola, an increase of consumers recognize the classic red can and think about the brand as more than just a tasty summer refreshment.

Why did Coca-Cola introduce "Share a Coke"? How did this idea create such a popular trend? All of the answers to these questions can be found with the Coca-Cola team working within the strategic planning department. The "Share a Coke" campaign has gained so much attention, nobody will forget this trend, thanks to their strategic message planning.

According to the Market Research Society, in recent years the drink market has introduced an increase of options for beverages while the market for carbonated drinks has decreased 3.3% because of recent health concerns and the increased popularity of smoothies, juice and water.

Because of the decreased popularity of carbonated beverages and an increase of drink options, Coca-Cola knew they needed to create a strategic message for their consumers to ensure people still picked their popular brand over competitors.

According to the Coca-Cola Company, in 2011 Lucie Austin, Director of marketing for Coca-Cola South Pacific received an idea that consisted of only 151 words and would change the marketing world. The campaign was titled "Project Connect" in hopes to connect with the younger generations.

The Coca-Cola team conducted research throughout the population of Australia and came to the conclusion that even though their younger audience still enjoyed their products, the younger population often felt they could not relate to such a large company.

Because of this disconnection between consumers and Coca-Cola, the strategic message team decided to put first names on their product following the tag line "Share a Coke With". Because of this tactic, consumers and Coca-Cola can now speak at eye level.

Advertisement posted by The Coca-Cola Company to engage consumers to take a break from your busy life and to #shareacoke with someone special.

After the first trial in Australia during summer 2011, Coca-Cola sold over 250 million bottles and cans with peoples names on them to a population of 23 million people. Since that successful summer, Coca-Cola has been continuing this tradition in over 70 countries.

Throughout the case study published by Market Research Society, the Coca-Cola cans also included #shareacoke. This hashtag was used by celebrities, other companies, throughout organic advertisement and popular social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Tumblr and other social media platforms.

Even though celebrities are usually the preferred way to engage with consumers, the increase of teen influencers has been growing and Coca-Cola took advantage of that strategy, making the #shareacoke the most successful campaign using the heart-to-heart tactic.

I remember when this trend debuted in the United States, and I was excited to find my name on one of my favorite drinks. I was always annoyed as a kid when I would go to a souvenir shop and I could never find a Magnet with "Ellen" on it. Even though it's not the most common name, I was still expecting to see it displayed. When I first found a #shareacokewithellen, I felt heard and I immediately purchased the bottle, even though it wasn't a flavor of Coca-Cola that I enjoyed.

During this past spring semester here at the University of Wisconsin Eau Claire, I was enrolled in CJ 373 Writing for Integrated Strategic Communication with Mary Worley. Throughout the semester, Dr. Worley discussed a variety of topics by analyzing case studies of specific brand campaigns and researching their embedded messages. Students also learned about legal and ethical dilemmas throughout advertisement. We practiced and researched the revision process that strategic planners experience throughout their work days and how audiences receive messages differently. To add on with that, we also learned how important AP style writing techniques are in this area of work.

While learning from Dr. Worley throughout my time in this course, I found the topic of analyzing case studies was the most interesting aspect of the advertising field. Within this topic, our class learned about the ideologies and how to properly write a strategic message for a company of a specific product.

In this course, Dr. Worley assigned our class to watch the TEDtalk: What makes something go viral. In this TEDtalk, Dao Nguyen discusses how a video or a trend becomes viral. Nguyen and her team discovered the answer completely by accident while streaming a prank on their Facebook live. Nguyen and her team discovered for a trend or video to go viral, the element of community and having the viewers feel involved is how so many trends become popular.

When people experience the feeling of involvement and community, they are more likely to engage and share that specific content. With this method, Coca-Cola was able to create one of the most famous examples of advertisement. In the beginning trials of this project, the Coca-Cola team used the most common names.

As the project went on, they realized the magnitude of the popularity of this trend. So, the team went in more depth with the variety of names and titles including Mom, Dad, Mate, etc to the combination of possibilities of names to include on the bottles.

Because of Mary Worley and her amazing insight and wisdom, I have learned so much about the behind the scenes of what goes on in the marketing and advertising world. Because of this knowledge, I am a lot more interested in working with the strategic planning aspects of advertisements and the science and methodology behind how to create and grab a viewer's attention.

As I have two semesters left here at The University of Wisconsin Eau Claire, I am very excited to continue my education in advertising and finding more tactics to enhance my future career. Similar to Coca-Cola, I hope to find ways to connect with communities and ensure that everyone sees representation throughout advertising.

As we leave for the semester and the forecast continues to shine, keep an eye out for your name at your local gas station:) #shareacoke