How Coca-Cola Used Snapchat to Drive Its Brand Favorability Across Three Countries

Almost all of us know what Coca-Cola is and are well-aware of its behemoth-sized organization with its branches spread all across the world. The soft-drink company became so popular in the late twentieth century that it enjoyed unmatched dominance in the global market for decades. However, the invention of internet-based product companies during the early years of the 21st century meant that Coca-Cola had to go beyond its most popular form of advertising i.e.; word-of-mouth and rely on more modern forms of marketing.

Thankfully, with the advent of the Internet and its deep penetration across the world, Coca-Cola’s marketing team had no dearth of reliable marketing avenues to spread its brand message far and wide. And Snapchat became a major shot in the arm for this soft-drink company.

Let’s see how Coca-Cola consolidated its existing customer base and converted potential customers in three countries i.e., Australia, Netherlands, and Denmark.

1. Coca-Cola Australia

Coca-Cola launched its “Share a Coke” campaign in Summer 2021 that set out to celebrate Australian friendships.

Their Objective

Coca-Cola wanted to make the most of the campaign by allowing Australian Snapchat users the opportunity to earn their 15 seconds of fame and become the face of the Share A Coke Campaign.

Solution & Approach

Coca-Cola fully understood that Snapchat could bring everyone together. So, it joined hands with the social media platform.

Coca-Cola invited Snapchat users to shout out their mates through an AR Lens and share their Snap directly to Coke. From there, it partnered with Mish Guru to collate all UGC Snaps sent directly to the brand - allowing Coke to select the best shout-outs to appear in a selection of TVCs that went live across Australia throughout the Summer months.

The Result

Coca-Cola’s Snapchat campaign was highly successful and led to a 19pt increase in its Ad awareness, which was four times higher than the Australian norm. Also, the message association increased by 24pts.

2. Coca-Cola Netherlands

With global warming threatening to become a major problem in the coming years, Coca-Cola decided to present itself as an environment-friendly organization that was seriously committed to safeguarding environmental health in 2019.

Their Objective

Coca-Cola Netherlands launched Lens and Snap Ads in collaboration with Reprise Digital and Universal Media to remind people of the importance of recycling.

Solution & Approach

Coca-Cola rightly chose Snapchat for its campaign as its one of the most widely used platforms by GenZ and millennials.

The Lens filled Snapchatters’ phones with empty Coke bottles and cans and challenged them to clean them up quickly. Once they got all of them in the recycle bin, users were rewarded with a cool summer look and the tagline “Let's Not Waste This Summer”, allowing Snapchatters to share the eco-friendly message with their friends.

The Result

The Snapchat campaign by Coca-cola Netherlands performed outstandingly well as the Lens delivered an excellent avg. playtime of 29 seconds. Also, the campaign was very effective at driving brand metrics as it drove a +13pt lift in Ad Awareness, +12 pt lift in Message Awareness, and +11pt lift in Brand Association. The campaign also drove favourability towards Coca-Cola and achieved a +12pt lift in brand favourability.

3. Coca-Cola Denmark

For the third year running, Coca-Cola Denmark ran its Share a Coke campaign in 2019. The campaign was all about giving people compliments to spread joy and positivity around the brand.

Their Objective

Coca-Cola wanted to run a Snapchat Lens that allowed people to share a personalized Coca-Cola bottle, adding their friend's name and a compliment, to really make this a unique experience.

Solution & Approach

A Lens was created that allowed Danish Snapchatters to personalize the Coca-Cola bottle and tag along a special compliment to share with their friends. This really tied in very strongly with the sentiment of the local Share a Coke campaign and its message of spreading positivity through compliments.

Coca-Cola also used SnapAds to increase the visibility of this Lens within the target audience. This drove further engagement and ensured most Danish Snapchatters had the opportunity to see and engage with the Lens.

The Result

Coca-Cola’s Snapchat campaign delivered exceptional results as the Lens outperformed most of Snap’s internal benchmarks. The Lens was played for almost twice as long compared to the average Lens and the campaign increased ad awareness by +32 pts versus Sanpachat’s internal benchmark of +15pts.

Wrapping Up

While Coca-Cola’s marketing success is for everyone to see, it’s worth noting that much of that has come on the back of its judicious utilization of existing marketing platforms. And Snapchat has been a vital cog in Coca-Cola’s marketing efforts.

Owing to its large user base of millennials and GenZ users, Snapchat has established itself as an ideal marketing platform for small businesses. With its various features like Video Ads, Story Ads, Snap Pixel, and goal-based bidding, brands can get themselves in front of their target audience and get the exposure that they want. All you need is a sound strategy that can help you capitalize upon Snapchat’s massive marketing potential.