2017 Winners

Music is a teen passion point and influences their behaviour and choices. Music consumption is shifting with streaming services on the rise and teens are streaming 27,000 hours of music every month. Spotify is now the second biggest revenue-generator for labels.

The challenge for Coke and its agency The Hive was to develop an idea with music at the center, driving brand love and disruption in a highly crowded space. Specifically, the agency was charged with increasing Incidence Growth year over year by two points and increasing Favourite Brand amongst teens by 1.5 points.

The brand wanted to connect music and Coke in a innovative and meaningful way. The team didn’t want to give teens the chance to win a big music experience. Instead, they decided to embrace the existing relationship between the target, brand and music and move Coke from the supporting role to a catalyst.

Working with Spotify, the agency created a way to capitalize on the natural way teens are consuming music and connect the brand to it in an innovative and ownable way. From there, the idea was to give every 500mL bottle of Coca-Cola its very own playlist. With the help of an app, for the first time ever, teens could not only drink a Coke but also “Play a Coke.”

The biggest creative channel was the bottle itself. Each bottle was given an exclusive playlist, which was printed on labels. Consumers simply downloaded the Play a Coke app, pointed their phones at their bottles and pressed play. From there, a Spotify playlist, exclusive to that Coca-Cola’s mood or occasion, played on their phone. Over 180 playlists were created.

Ads on Spotify and pre-roll let consumers know about the program as well as gave them a brief tutorial on how it all worked. To extend reach with teens, the agency also co-created playlists with social media influencers like Superwoman, who were given their own bottles.

Strategic partnerships with Coca-Cola’s customers served to deepen engagement and further the reach as custom playlists were created for McDonald’s, Mac’s and Landmark cinemas. Retailers also jumped on board and displays were specially created to target that retailer’s shoppers.

In the end, the brand saw a share gain of nine points (versus May 2015), the Incidence target of two points was met in the first month, there was a 41% volume growth of 500mL Bottles (versus May 2015), and the Favourite Brand Score increased by four points (double the objective within the first 30 days of the program versus the previous year).