Coca-cola nails social media by releasing personalized bottles | Hacker News Reader

Coca-cola nails social media by releasing personalized bottles

owened.co.nz

82 pointsdirtyaura52 comments

In Australia they did this a year ago - predictably using common names with a scattering of rare names. Then they did "relationship" ones - sister, boss, mother, etc.

At one stage I saw a coke event of some sort in a mall that looked like you could line up and get a bottle custom printed with any name on it.

It was definitely successful increasing the amount of people talking about coke, even if only to lament that they'd never be able to find their name.

Also, Will Anderson (from Gruen Planet) found you couldn't order ones labeled "Pepsi" or "Urine", but you could order one for "Dia" and another for "Betes".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bb_I95JkFLc

Every time someone managed to get a custom printed Coke bottle - the proud owner inevitably photographed the bottle for display on Facebook - which of course is the real genius behind their marketing campaign.

It may have been an expensive marketing exercise for Coca-Cola, but being so different definitely grabs headlines.

and, at the same time, in response to proposals for federal laws to replicate successful SA and NT container deposit schemes, they were whining to government that the cost of printing '10c deposit refunded upon return' on their labels would be unbearable ...

I never once saw a James (my own name). It could be confirmation bias, but I swear very common names were not printed as often to keep more people looking for their own names.

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=common+names

Yep, my friend lined up to get one, the line was massive. It took him maybe half an hour when we went, but later the line was about 4 times as long.

Jones Soda has been doing this since the late 90s:

http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=200...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jones_Soda#myJones

To be fair, this is completely different.

It wouldn't surprise me if this benefits Coke by making consumers more interested, but hurts Coke by pissing off store owners. Most stores that sell soda are set up for the consumer to take the soda from the front of a long row, and then the row slides up in the display. I'd guess that some customers would create a mess trying to find their name and not bother to clean it up (if they can - many soda refrigerators can only be easily loaded from the back).

If my speculation is true, that probably gives store owners an incentive to de-emphasize the placement of the Coke so that random browsers will be less likely to create a huge mess. Obviously store owners have to sell Coca-Cola because some customers are specifically looking for it, but they don't have to give it prime real estate.

Or, it may give store owners an incentive to give Coke more shelf space, so consumers can see more names at once.

"...give Coke more shelf space..." (emphasis mine)

Not to be pedantic, but most of my local stores (Big Box and one-off convenience stores) charge for shelf and floor space. Basically, charging rent for the location soft drinks are offered. If Coke wants more room, Coke has to negotiate for more room.

As for me, if I'm buying Coke at a convenience store for a drink on the road, I only care that the bottle says "Coca Cola" and I'm taking the coldest or frontmost bottle.

Exactly, stores in meatspace don't care too much about eyeballs (unless they're prominently placed ones - which double as billboards).

They care about $sales/sqft because they have to pay the rent and the stuff that pays better will get more shelf space. I'm doubtful, but it's possible that personalized coke bottles could end up selling other stuff too, but it better be like crack or it's not gonna get more shelf space.

In Australia cans and bottles sold in those stores just had 'mate' or 'boss' on them, there were only named ones in supermarkets and stores that had a lot of them horizontally iirc. I presume they did this for precisely that reason.

Coca-cola, along with pretty much every brand, pays quite a lot to have it's product on the shelves or on display ends. Pissed off or not, supermarkets are being paid to position it. And usually paid for prime real estate.

In NZ, at least in supermarkets, Coke usually sends their own employee to manage their shelf space for most of the day. The only time I ever touched the Coke shelf was late evening near closing.

As i've never worked in a servo I couldn't confirm if this is the case.

I feel stupid for asking this but - what is the big deal with having my name on a cokebottle? The whole thing doesn't make any sense to me (well, that is probably why I don't work in marketing, which is a good thing).

How easily we are amused. How quickly we classify things as genius.

The campaign was running when I was in Australia for a few weeks at the beginning of the year. Such a simple but great marketing campaign.

And it must have worked, because on three separate occasions I bought Cokes when I was intending to, to take pics of the bottles and send back to unsuspecting friends in North America.

It was called "genius" because it turned an impersonal object into its opposite (a personalized object) and did it really, really successfully.

Yeah I thought it was a brilliant success in Australia. Like the author of the article states - you wouldnt go a day without seeing a bottle in your feed. It was pretty active for at least 6 months before it died down.

I dont drink coke, but I did enjoy the fad.

Was already done about a year ago here in Australia:

http://mumbrella.com.au/coca-cola-puts-peoples-names-on-bott...

Not sure about the rest of the world.

Coca-Cola is experimenting with a "smart" soda machine (dubbed "Freestyle") that lets you share personalized mix/match flavors with your friends. It comes loaded with over 100 brands.

They also had a mobile app to send a Coke to a stranger, which was part of an advertising campaign.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45Z-GevoYB8

The Freestyle is already deployed. Five Guys is installing them in as many stores as they can, and I recently went through a Wendy's drive-thru that had one, although I'm not sure how one uses it that way.

Yep, they are deploying nationwide. The one I saw recently was a prototype that had wifi and social integration, etc.

They're doing the same here in Brazil: http://translate.google.com/translate?twu=1?sl=auto&tl=e...

I'm in New Zealand myself, and I really hate this. I drink Coke as a guilty pleasure, but when they bought this in I got really turned off.

I'm not going to drink Coke that's for "Callum", "Katherine" or <random name that's not mine nor my wifes>.

Major turn off. I would really like to see if this promotion actually works.

Get yourself a stubby holder, BOOM!

I can't imagine allowing something like this to bother me - it's just a name on a disposable bottle. Are you sure you're not railing against it because you don't like seeing the marketing being so successful on social networks?

... how is it being successful on social networks anyway? I haven't seen anything about this on Facebook.

It just feels like the bottle belongs to someone else. I'm allowed to feel weird, if I want.

I don't know if it's successful in NZ or not, but when it ran in Australia a year or so back you barely went a day without someone posting a picture of them with their name on the bottle.

Perhaps you just have a network that wouldn't react to this promotion. That's fine, and you're allowed to feel fine.

I think this is a promotion stands out* because it appears to me that the promotion is primarily driven by a "real world" (read: physical) product that is being shared online as opposed to a social media campaign reliant on traditional "sharing." People are actually compelled to take a picture and share the product online; not just click a "share" or "like" button

*I say stands out, because successful obviously depends on the chosen metrics.

Can't you just take the label off?

Whats wrong with people…

Having proud ownership of a less common name, to me this is as about as exciting as going to one of those souvenir shops and seeing the rack of mugs with names on them. Mine is never there, so I never bother to look anymore.

obligatory Simpsons quote, 'We need more "Bort" coke bottles in the shop. I repeat, we are sold out of "Bort" coke bottles.'

It's a bottle of soda, not a condom.

What I want to see (and somewhat of a prediction) is for CocaCola to have a campaign where users connect with Facebook, CocaCola collects all of their information - for good purposes of course ;) ...and then print personalized labels with the user's actual Facebook profile pic. They'd know the user's location, so they'd just need to workout how to distribute those bottles to local distributors.

If people are stupid enough to search for a common name on a coke bottle, then they'll go apeshit searching their local retailers for their actual Facebook picture (and those of their friends).

Coke should give me a royalty for this :)

They would probably get sued for misrepresentation (aligning someones image with a brand is not a right unless you sign waivers, which granted some people would do). Names are generic hence you can get away with it.

Also it would feel more lik missing persons on milk cartons than social brilliance.

Edit: Wait, should I be hearing a whoosh sound about now?

All you do is include the waiver and terms when they connect on Facebook. I'm not saying print random user profile pics. They'd have to connect first.

Vedett, a Belgian beer brewery, has been doing something similar / doing it better. It prints user-uploaded pictures on all their bottles. It's pretty cool and has made the beer quite popular among the 'creative avant-garde' (or whatever we call 'em these days):

http://www.vedett.be/

I work in retail, and the amount of times I'd see customers moving coke bottles all over the shelf just so they could find particular names, it was just astounding. Infuriating, but somewhat clever marketing.

I thought social media was something to do with connecting users on the web, not printing statistically relevant names on products.

Jim wants a Coke.

Jim finds a Coke with his name on it!

Jim says, "Hey, that's pretty neat."

Jim posts an Instagram of him next to his personal Coke.

Jenny sees Jim's post and comments -- "Hey, that's pretty neat. Where can I get one with Jenny on it?"

That's not "nailing" social media. That's creating a clever marketing trick and then being happy that people shared it on social media. Did PSY "nail" social media because people "Liked" his video? Did <insert group name here> "nail" social media because your aunt forwarded their spam to you? Did some band "not nail" social media because their video didn't go viral?

Coke advertised their product. Some people got excited, and told their friends on social media. Just like other things. Coke didn't do anything special with social media, they just counted on people using it. Big deal.

Typical Kiwis. Years behind the Aussies.

And Aussies years behind xx. No point saying that 'mate'.

this reminds me of the keychains I used to see at highway rest stops that had all sorts of people's names on them. Always wondered who bought them (especially as no one in my family has a "popular" name).

When they did this in Australia, they had quite a lot of foreign and otherwise less-common names included. There was also things like "Share a coke with your Mate", "Share a coke with your Bro", "Share a coke with your Boss", etc.

Bart: (looking at license plates) Hmmm... Barclay, Barry, Bert, Bort!? Oh, come on... Bort?

Kid: Mommy, mommy! Buy me a license plate!

Lady: No, come along, Bort.

Man: Hey, you talking to me?

Lady: No, my son is also named 'Bort'.

> Always wondered who bought them (especially as no one in my family has a "popular" name).

People with popular names probably bought them, right? Does this even need to be said...?

christ people are fucking stupid if simply seeing their name written somewhere pleases them that much

..... Welcome to humanity. Would you like a Coke?

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