Coke’s ‘Share A Coke With’ Campaign Worked — Soft Drink Sales On The Rise

The Coke cans with the names on them, the ones your friends have posted ironic or coincidental pictures of on their Facebook and Instagram pages, have helped Coke in a big way.

For the first time in 11 years, sales of Coke are on the rise, according to the Wall Street Journal. Coke’s U.S. soft drink sales have increased by 0.4 percent, according to data.

Seeing a Coke can with your name on it is a thrill, something that led to all those pics on social media. Some 250 names were used in the campaign, and custom-made machines that could print any name you like travelled the country over the summer. The simple marketing campaign was always intended to be temporary. Now that summer’s left us, however, so has the “Share a Coke” campaign — though with such success, it’s almost a certainty that we’ll see it again.

The campaign seems to have appealed to everybody, but especially young consumers.

Dean Crutchfield, an independent branding consultant, commented on the campaign.

“A Coke can or bottle is the most iconic design in the world and the fact you can impact that with your name has a huge curiosity and ‘wow’ factor.”

The United States wasn’t the first country to experience the “Share A Coke” campaign. It was first launched in 2011 in Australia, after local executives and the ad agency Ogilvy brainstormed ways to re-engage consumers in stores and online.

The campaign worked in other countries, too. Coke says sales of its cola jumped 7 percent among young Australians during the inaugural campaign. The “Share a Coke” campaign has since spread to about 80 countries.

Coke manufactured cans with a multitude of different names and nicknames such as “Dad,” “Sis,” and “Bestie.”

Coca-Cola was originally created in 1886 when Colonel John Pemberton was wounded in the Civil War and became addicted to morphine. Pemberton tried to find a substitute for the dangerous drug, and the prototype Coca-Cola recipe was formulated at Pemberton’s Eagle Drug and Chemical House, a drugstore in Columbus, Georgia. Originally sold as a patent medicine for five cents, Pemberton claimed that Coca-Cola could cure morphine addiction, dyspepsia, neurasthenia, headaches, and impotence.

By the dawn of the 20th Century, Coca-Cola was an American standard, available nationwide. Coke has continued to dominate the soft drink market ever since. However, soft drink sales have been on the decline over the last decade. ABC News reports that more and more people are turning away from soft drinks and seeking out more healthy alternatives.

[Image via Doctor Disney]