How many of us, even though we don't want the drink, have consciously/unconsciously been in search of your name on a Coke bottle ? Yea, I'm sure majority would've embarked on this search.

The personalised bottle campaign rolled out by Coca-Cola is based upon the easiest principle in marketing and PR - INVOLVE YOUR CONSUMER! They successfully did this by giving their consumers a sense of ownership of the brand.

Although, an American coffee company, Starbucks, does something similar - the company's Baristas scribble on a cup of purchased coffee names obtained from the buyer -, but that's having your name hand-written on a cup.

The campaign did well to reconnect to lost consumers and introduce new ones. The personalisation has been a sheer act of brilliance by the red giant, for people who don't even drink Coke are still searching for their name! Even though the unhealthy stigma is attached to a 'fizzy drink' if I saw my name on a drink I would buy it for the sheer novelty value of it.

'Share a coke with' is a fantastic example of integrated marketing communications with the Facebook digital coke sharing, YouTube share a coke with video and the Share a Coke roadshow. Kids are found looking for their names on a bottle - it's pretty hard to turn down. It goes one step further with countless bottles being Instagrammed, uploaded to Facebook and tweeted, creating a bigger brand awareness, and to be honest, it's the way most people found out about the campaign - It went viral through Social Media!

Some consumers have spelled out “Will you be my prom date?” or “Marry Me” across multiple bottles. The creativity we’ve seen shows that ‘Share a Coke’ is about more than just names. Bravo Coca Cola!

But How Did It All Start
In 2011, Coca-Cola in Australia was facing a more aggressive and crowded market-place.

It briefed a number of agencies to come up with a new campaign idea that would increase consumption of Coca-Cola over the summer period and get people talking about Coke again particularly among a younger audience.

Advertising agency Ogilvy in Australia won the pitch with a simple idea. Their insight was to encourage people to reconnect again or start up a conversation with a friend or mate. This led them to place the names of past or current friends on the labels of Coke bottles for the first time in their brand’s history.This innovative moved to Great Britain and Ireland in 2013, United States and Canada in the same year, México, Colombia, Nigeria in 2014 and Brazil in 2015.

Global Statistics of "Share a Coke" campaign in 2014
-Over a thousand names on our bottles
-998 million impressions on Twitter
-235,000 tweets from 111,000 fans using the #ShareaCoke hashtag
-More than 150 million personalised bottles sold
-Over 730,000 glass bottles personalised via the e-commerce store
-17,000 virtual name bottles shared online across Europe
-65 experiential stops on the Share a Coke tour

4 key factors in the success of the Campaign:
-It was innovative for Coca-Cola
-The mass market appeal
-The high level of personalisation and
-The user-generated content.

Five things you didn't know about Share a Coke
1. During the planning phase, the campaign was known internally as ‘Project Connect’
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