Coca-Cola's polar bear (connecting it with the 'Share a coke' campaign)

In 2011, one of the most successful campaign in the world, Share a coke, launched in Australia. The top 150 most popular names were printed onto millions of bottles to strengthen the brand's bond with Australia's young consumers and inspire them with shared moments of happiness in the real and virtual worlds. The campaign was so well received other countries around the world adopted it with their own unique twists. This campaign is still being done in some countries.

'Share a coke' - Korean version

How was it able to be really successful like that? It is undeniable that the campaign was ground-breaking, but Let's suppose any brand says "share its product." to people with their names on it. Would people always share the product passionately? I am not really sure about that. One thing is really clear. The campaign was that successful as it was Coca-cola.

So I want to discuss the foundation which Coca-cola established before the 'share a coke' campaign. It is hard to just pick one factor as they made good use of emotional branding for decades, but the subject that I chose for this post is the iconic character, polar bear.

1. The origin
The company wanted consumers to perceive a coke as a feeling not just a product all the time. This is why the famous ads, "I'd like to buy the world a coke" and "Mean Joe Greene" was made and released. According to the official interview of the director, he wanted to get the feeling he had for his dog into the commercial, and he found out a polar bear was look alike with his dog. This is where the polar bear ad was started. (Technically, It is restarted as the polar bear also appeared in the past for winter campaigns)

2. Messages
The primary emotion that we can have after watching ads appearing the polar bears is 'happiness'. They describe the feeling in diverse ways emphasizing the value of a family and community.

At the same time, they show we have commonness that we love Coca-Cola, which is followed by harmony. 

Happiness, commonness, harmony, community, these are what Coca-Cola put emphasis on in their ad campaigns with polar bears for almost decades

Insight

As far as I recall, there are some similar campaigns, but they weren't 't that successful compared to the 'Share a coke' campaign. In any markets, proactive customers are just a few. Most of them are close to passive. To move majority of customers with marketing campaigns, the message of a campaign should sound reasonable for them. The messages that Coca-Cola had been delivered was obviously a good match with the 'Share a coke' campaign, and I believe this was one of the most important factors for customer's active participation in the campaign. 

Good campaigns always have reasons for successes. Just copying another successful campaign is not the answer in the marketing. I thing defining what brand we have been and deciding what direction should we go to is more important than just bench-marking. It is definite that I need to practice to have that ability, I think that is why I need to do more case studies so that I can have that insight. I will do this case studies more frequently!