Mobile Marketing is key to Coca Cola’s expansion plans

Rating: Levi Shapiro explains how in Jerusalem Post blog

Writing in a blog for the Jerusalem Post, Levi Shapiro, Professor in the Media Innovation Lab at IDC, explains how soft drinks giant – Coca-Cola, plans to double its revenues by 2020. Naturally, mobile marketing is going to be a core part of that strategy. The drinks company has realised, of course, that if it wants to achieve its goal, then growth has to come from emerging markets and mobile is the ideal media for reaching such potential customers. Besides targeting markets in the likes of China and Latin America, the global brand is also investigation how it can utilise technological advances such as Augmented Reality (AR) and Holographic 3D to achieve its plans.Shapiro interviewed Tom Daly, Coke’s group director for global connections, to get the low down on the company’s mobile marketing efforts.

Daly explained, “Our focus is on building content and experiences that only mobile can create. We want to move beyond mobile advertising and create interactions between consumers and the brand.”

Significantly, Daly set out his mobile budget which takes a 70:20:10 format. That’s 70 per cent for messaging (SMS and MMS); 20 per cent for mobile web; but only 10 per cent for smartphone applications.

An example of its smartphone campaigns is one which formed part of Project Re:brief.

This is basically a mobile implementation of Coke’s legendary 1971 TV campaign – ‘I’d like to buy the world a Coke’ (Hilltop).

Basically, Coke got together with Google’s adMob agency and created apps for both Android and IOS which really did enable the user to buy a bottle of coke for a stranger half way around the world.

The campaign centred around specially designed vending machines which were able to film the recipient and then send the video clip back to the purchaser’s mobile phone. See the YouTube video here.

It’s interesting because no only does the Coke app make good use of Google Maps to show where the potential recipient is located, it also utilises Google’s Translate to modify the message to the recipient’s language

Coca-Cola’s most successful Chinese mobile marketing campaign combined mobile messaging and mobile web.

Consumers could send a Chinese New Year greeting across online media platforms including mobile.

Initially, they would leave a New Years wish for friends on the mobile web campaign site and Coke would then send the wish out on a virtual coke bottle via MMS.

In future, the drinks company is expected to employ elements of Augmented Reality and 3D holographic illusion as previously demonstrated with ‘Dreamoc’. Watch the video here.