2013 Winners & Shortlists

The Campaign

The Middle East has one of the highest youth populations. But, Pepsi dominated the youth’s share of heart and pocket. To be successful, brand love needed to be won. How could Coca-Cola improve its brand love with the youth? Love would come from tapping into their passions and making them happier. So, we needed to go beyond an oft-trodden and unsuccessful strategy of promotions. Culturally, music is a passion point with the youth. Culturally, the youth were seeking to balance between tradition and modernity and finding the best of both worlds meant a lot to them. If Coca-Cola had to give a stronger emotional pay-off than Pepsi, we had to own Music as a platform in a unique and remarkable manner, and how music could bring the best of both worlds (tradition + modernity, east + west, our region + the world) and open happiness through harmony. This would help us differentiate from the clutter of generic sponsorships (of talent shows) and superficial music advertising (using celebrities without any real insight/cultural relevance) deployed by Pepsi to appeal to the youth.

Results

Coca-Cola ranked #2 with the youth as their favourite soft drink. To win their share of pocket, we needed to win their share of heart. To build and increase brand love, we introduced Coke Studio, calling the region’s youth to sing together with the world and open happiness through harmony. We created a TV program on MBC – Middle East’s most popular TV channel – with each of the 9 episodes having an influential Arab artist (youth favorite), collaborating with a popular international artist to create one original and amazing fusion song, showing how harmony is unlocked with unity and collaboration. Highlights were uploaded on the website and on influential platforms such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter with "behind the scenes" raw footage. Radio had sound bites of each influencer artist from the show. To engage the youth, we picked Yara, a popular Arab artist and in the spirit of the magic of Fusion, we created an activation they had yet to experience - A new idea in entertainment in the region: The Region's First Live and Interactive Concert. We set up a concert-like environment and created a completely believable computer-generated likeness of Yara projected onstage. We gave fans an opportunity to sing with the star resulting in a fusion duet that felt real and live - an effect that the youth were performing with her. All performances were watched live by thousands everyday and all videos were uploaded live on the YouTube channel. We also invited people to vote for those performances. The best ones were selected at winners. We also took the essence of the Hologram online where created a unique, one-of-a-kind Facebook application called "Coke Studio & Me" giving users an opportunity to sing with Yara, resulting in the region’s first-ever social media playlist.

We introduced Coke Studio, a multi-channel branded content program, calling the youth to sing together with the world. 1) A TV program of 9 episodes on MBC where an influential Arab artist collaborated with a popular international artist to create one original and amazing fusion song 2) Episode highlights on web and social media channels 3) Behind-the-scenes raw footage online 4) The region's first social media playlist where they could co-create songs with a leading artist 5) The region's first live interactive hologram concerts where youth could perform a live song with a leading artist before a concert-like audience.

+ Coke Studio was a breakthrough success with the 3rd highest ratings on Arab TV vs. other programs airing in the same time segment. + On a business level, Coke Studio increased Brand Love Score with the UAE reaching 3.1 for the first time ever, while across the region, association with music grew by +6 points and brand favouritism grew by +2 points due to the positive association with music (a 51% increase), a very positive growth for the brand Coca-Cola. + Tens of thousands of mall visitors watched the live hologram concerts, and over a thousand people participated. + YouTube channel and the videos overall got over 1,196,000 video views and 4,020 subscribers; and Twitter got over 7,000 followers, and over 400 fan content videos. + It's social media currency grew with its Facebook page reaching a 35% engagement score after just 10 weeks – a phenomenal rate – and its fans grew to 1.1 million with just the first Season. + Coke Studio's social content and experiences generated ‘Always On’ Brand conversations: 18,402 social media mentions with over 90% positive sentiments. 78% of those mentions praised the idea of fusion and collaboration.