Coca-Cola Co. is seeing sales rise for the first time in more than a decade, thanks to its personalized bottle campaign, reportsThe Wall Street Journal.
The "Share a Coke" campaign was first launched in Australia in 2011, with the local executives and the ad agency Ogilvy coming up with the idea. In the years since, the campaign has spread to more than 70 countries, including a U.S. launch this summer.
While Coca-Cola isn't releasing its official sales figures ahead of the planned earnings call in late October, the Journal cites sources who are claiming sales volumes are up 0.4 percent for 12 weeks through August of this year, compared to the same period last year, and that sales dollars are up 2.5 percent overall—all after more than 10 years of steady declines. Those sources also noted that sales at Coca-Cola's biggest rivals—PepsiCo and Dr Pepper Snapple Group—have remained in the negatives. Coca-Cola is increasing its advertising budget by $1 billion in the next three years; its budget was $3.3 billion in 2013.
The campaign was never intended to mark a permanent change to the soft drink bottles, and already, Coca-Cola is beginning to phase them off shelves. But a senior brand manager for the company has said there will be "serious consideration" given to bringing it back again in the United States next summer.
"At the end of the day, our name is the most personal thing we have. It's our fingerprint…our identity…in one word,"said Lucie Austin, one of the original brand executives in Australia to launch the campaign, and who now runs marketing for the Northwest Europe and Nordics business unit at Coca-Cola.
"We gave consumers an opportunity to express themselves through a bottle of Coke, and to share the experience with someone else. The fact that your name is on a Coke bottle, it can't get more personal than that! The campaign capitalized on the global trend of self-expression and sharing, but in an emotional way. Coke is big enough to pull off an idea like this, which speaks to the iconic nature of the brand. Who would want their name on a brand unless it was as iconic as Coke? 'Share a Coke' found the sweet spot by making consumers famous through the most iconic brand in the world."
Subway is teaming with Diet Coke to offer Taylor Swift fans a sweeps and exclusive video content around the Oct. 27 release of her latest album, "1989."
The #MeetTaylor campaign includes a sweeps (Oct. 1-Nov. 15) offering daily drawings for a total of 46 trips-for-two to attend a concert and meet Swift during her 2015 tour. There are also 46 first prizes of packages that include a Taylor Swift guitar with a replica signature and other Swift swag. Entry is limited to U.S. residents 13 or older.
Fans can enter by purchasing a limited-edition, Swift-branded 30-ounce Diet Coke cup bearing a code, and entering the code onSubway.com, or scanning it by using Subway's Freshbuzz App. Those that use the free, downloadable mobile app — a portal for Subway news and celebrity content — will get an extra entry and access to the exclusive Swift video content, which will be refreshed weekly during October.
In the U.S., Subway is promoting the campaign in-restaurant and through TV, radio, social media and online channels that reach the Millennials who make up Swift's fan base.
The sweeps promotion that's taken over Subway's homepage also offers a link to Swift's site to preorder the album. In addition, Subway is promoting the album's release in its campaign marketing materials.
Swift, the best-selling digital music artist of all time, signed a long-term brand ambassador deal with Diet Coke in January 2013, which included the brand's being a sponsor of her tour for her last album, "Red." Swift's other brand partners in promoting that album included Papa John's, as well as Target, Walgreens, Keds, CoverGirl and Elizabeth Arden.
Diet Coke is expected to roll out more marketing timed around the new Swift album in coming weeks, as is Keds, and Target will offer a deluxe-edition exclusive, reportsBillboard.
In its press release for the #MeetTaylor campaign, Subway is stressing that it's now the world's largest QSR in terms of number of locations. A banner at the top of its site boasts that the chain now has 42,743 restaurants in 108 countries.
As part of a two-day street oriented competition in the NYC borough, attendees could virtually take on skating with the athletes
The 10th Anniversary season of Mountain Dew’s Dew Tour continued last weekend with the Toyota City Championships held in Brooklyn, New York. The third stop on the 2014 schedule saw many of the world’s best BMX and skateboard athletes take part in the action, and attendees were also given the chance to get involved through a unique VR experience.
The two-day street-oriented competition took place at the House of Vans, with competitions including BMX streetstyle, skateboard streetstyle, BMX street, and skateboard street. The Dew Tour organizers worked with the City to close down Franklin Street for a distinctive streetstyle course which combined real-life street obstacles with reinforced structures. Inside the House of Vans, the street course challenged athletes to demonstrate their technical skills and create unique lines through the features.
During the event, Mountain Dew debuted itsVirtual Reality Skate Experience. This live-action 3D, 360°, binaural audio-branded experience is one of the first of its kind developed for the new Oculus Rift DK2 developer headset. Fans who attended the action sports exhibition in Brooklyn were given the chance to virtually become part of the Dew Skate Team. They were able to feel as though they were riding alongside legendary pros like Paul Rodriguez and Sean Malto through some of the most iconic spots in Las Vegas.
For attendees, it was a ride down the Vegas strip they would likely never forget. The epic virtual reality skateboarding experience put fans in the center of the action and after they were done, they walked away with a split-screen video of their experience, which they could share with friends and family on social media.
Mountain Dew’s digital agency Firstborn created the experience, working with legendary skate filmmaker Ty Evans to get hold of the best shots for virtual immersion. The development process ranged from 3D-printed camera rig prototypes, to proprietary software design for the new Oculus unit, and beyond. You can check out a behind-the-scenes video for the Mountain Dew Virtual Reality Skate Experience.
The PepsiCo-owned brand, which has undergone multiple makeovers since launching in 2000, is changing its formula and design, with new packaging that recently began hitting stores. The lemon-lime soda will still be made with sugar instead of high-fructose corn syrup -- a change implemented in 2010 -- but the brand is adding stevia, which will result in a 20% calorie reduction for an 8-ounce serving, a PepsiCo spokeswoman said.
The formula change marks the first time PepsiCo has put a stevia-sweetened soda in the U.S., and follows the recent launch in the states of Coca-Cola Life, which is sweetened with cane sugar and stevia.
Sierra Mist's packaging update includes font changes -- the 'M" in Mist now looks like two triangles colliding. Also, gone are images of sliced lemon and limes riding liquid waves. In their place, the brand is using something a little more psychedelic that meshes circular images of various shades of green and yellow and white.
"The new package utilizes strong color cues to communicate the lemon/lime flavor to bring a more modern approach to the packaging as compared to the traditional lemon/lime wedges,"a PepsiCo spokeswoman said in an email. The changes will be accompanied by a new campaign called "Make Interesting Happen" that seeks to "spark the curiosity of the millennial consumer by delivering experiences from the outer edges of mainstream culture," she added. The effort will include experiential, as well as print, digital and radio ads and consumer promotions and retail merchandising.
The agency on the campaign is Van's General Store, New York, which was co-founded in 2012 by actor Liev Schreiber and describes itself as a "hybrid creative collective."Van's General Store has been working in collaboration with Sylvain Labs, a strategic planning consultancy that has been working on Sierra Mist's relaunch, Scott Carlson, a Van's General Store co-founder, said in an email.
The forthcoming campaign differs from recent comparative campaigns the brand had been running, including a TV spot that ran in 2012 that sought to differentiate the brand from "the other guys" with artificial preservatives.
That messaging failed to lift Sierra Mist from a sales funk. Sales volume in 2013 "dropped below 100 million cases for the first time since 2003, far off its 2006 peak of 145.4 million cases," Beverage Digest recently reported.
The redesign comes four years after Sierra Mist made significant packaging updates as it became "Sierra Mist Natural," replacing high-fructose corn syrup with sugar. The brand was the first mainstream soda to make such a change.
By 2011, those graphics were updated to include more green than white so as to not be confused with a diet soda. Then last year the brand went back to the two-word Sierra Mist moniker, removing the word "Natural" in all caps that had appeared just under the brand name.
The PepsiCo spokeswoman said on Wednesday that "Sierra Mist elected to move away from using the 'natural' label on its packaging due to the lack of detailed regulatory guidance on the use of the term."
The Food and Drug Administration does not have a standard definition for what constitutes natural,saying on its websitethat "it is difficult to define a food product that is 'natural' because the food has probably been processed and is no longer the product of the earth." Still, the agency says it has "not objected to the use of the term if the food does not contain added color, artificial flavors, or synthetic substances."
The ingredients listed in the previous formula of Sierra Mist are: carbonated water, sugar, citric acid, natural flavor and potassium citrate. The new formula lists those same ingredients along with potassium sorbate, which "preserves freshness," as well as purified stevia leaf extract. A 12-ounce can now carries 120 calories, compared with 140 calories in the old version.
The change comes as PepsiCo and other soda makers seek to reach a goal announced Tuesday of reducing beverage calories consumed per person nationally by 20% by 2025.
Stevia might help reduce calories, but its use in drinks in the U.S. has been met with mixed reviews. For instance, Coca-Cola's Vitaminwater recentlyreversed courseon adding stevia to the drink after consumers complained.
Sierra Mist recently teased its change on itsFacebook pageand was met with a smattering of consumer complaints, including one person who stated that "the old recipe was a nice crisp taste, [and the] new one has a diet aftertaste."
Sierra Mist's tumble has come as PepsiCo has spent less money supporting the brand. Measured media spending fell to $4.2 million last year from $18.9 million in 2012, according to Kantar Media.
