Declining Coca-Cola Sales Energized by the Groundswell

             

ShareACoke

            It’s been a rough decade for Coca-Cola and for the soda industry. After 11 years of declining sales, something happened over the summer. Coca-Cola encouraged us to share, and we did. We didn’t necessarily share in the traditional sense of the word. We shared in the Groundswell sense and we energized a brand. Your welcome Coke, cheers to your success.

            How did the company get our attention this summer? Well, in case you didn’t see the commercials or go on Twitter or Facebook this summer. Here’s a quick recap:

Instead of the classic Coke can, Coca-Cola, Diet Coke and Coke Zero decided to rebrand the can in June 2014. This isn't

Coke’s first can makeover, but it is the first time the Coke can was personalized for you.  Yes, personalized meaning your name or your friends name or brother’s name or—you get the picture—appeared on a can. Finding your's became part of the fun. Posting your findings with the #shareacoke became part of the groundswell. In order to find and post we needed to buy the can, therefore the beverage behemoth posted a 0.4% gain in sales since the campaign began.

Through the groundswell Coke made their products cool again, without anyone ever needing to take a sip, unless you really wanted to. They took the focus off of what was inside the can and focused on the outside and energized the groundswell. According to Google Trends, Coca-Cola reached 65 in search data out of 100 between the months of July and August.

Google Trends- Coca-Cola Interest 

 According to Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff, authors of Groundswell:winning in a world transformed by social technologies Coca-Cola could have energized the groundswell in three ways:

1.      Tap into customers’ enthusiasm with ratings and          reviews.    

2.      Create a Community to energize your customers.

3.      Participate in and energize online communities of your brand enthusiasts.

 Coca-Cola chose to create a community where fans and people who found their can could connect and share their stories and pictures through www.shareacoke.com and post #shareacoke on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. You could even create your own virtual Coke bottle with your name and easily post it to social media. Even Bruno Mars is thrilled to see his name on a Coke.

Facebook

        Before the hashtag took off, the folks at Coca-Cola had to figure out who they wanted to reach through researching their social technographics profile. They found they wanted to reach teens and millennials and took the top 250 most popular names of this demographic and put them across their cans.
      As Chapter 10 in Groundswell suggests, Twitter was extremely effective in helping this campaign go viral. It is easy to snap a picture of your soda and share it with all your followers. It truly is a key part of the groundswell because it reports on and drives the movement. Take a look at this post and the article linked to it:

Brand of the Day: How @CocaCola's #shareacoke Went Beyond Ingenious Packaging to Boost Sales http://t.co/cX3IzsTe4y pic.twitter.com/C9z36z4Asf
— kristina monllos (@kristinamonllos) September 29, 2014

 Coca-Cola is also embracing the groundswell, similar to the salesforce.com case study found in Chapter 9 of Groundswell. Li and Bernoff argue,

“First of all, customers don’t take long to tell you what they want. They use your product and interact with your company; they know what’s wrong and how things can be fixed. They have ideas your development people and management hasn’t thought of yet. As soon as you’re ready, you can tap into these sources of innovation (183)”

           

            The soda giant is ready. Their official contact us page reads like a focus group begging for input on what can be done better. You can submit an idea and ask a question from a live Coca-Cola agent. They know their sugary product has a bad reputation and listen. They want Coca-Cola’s brand to be more likeable.

Coca-Cola Contact Us

Although the personalized Coke cans disappeared off of shelves across America, Coke still tries to maintain the energy it created with its “Moments of Happiness” campaign. Are Coca-Cola’s campaigns making you happy?