Personalization – Coca Cola Increases Sales by 30%

The marketing gurus have been preaching personalization for years. Technology has allowed us as marketers to deliver more relevant and personalized messages and advertising to our consumers. Coca Cola recently took personalization in a different direction… thinking of it a little more literally. This year's #ShareaCoke campaign started with printing 400 popular boy and girl names on Coke, Diet Coke and Coke Zero.

When you go to the freezer in the gas station to get a drink and you pull out a coke, you realize it has somebody else's name on it. If you know someone with that name your first thought might be to buy it anyway and give it to that person you know. Your second thought is going to be to look back into the freezer and start looking through each row of drinks to see if they have your name. In the process you will likely see the names of a few more people you know and you just might buy those too so you too can #ShareaCoke.

Sound silly? I had a meeting last week with the local distributor of Coca Cola in my state and their marketing department told me sales are up 30%. WHAT???? Any brand would do darn near anything legal to get a 30% increase in sales but for a brand like Coca Cola to have that type of increase is crazy. To be clear I don't know if they were referring to national growth or growth specific to the local marketing area of my state.

Oh, and in the meeting they handed me the Jacob bottle you see here 🙂

The key here; get creative and think about how to make it more personal.