Coca-Cola’s #TakeATaste Virtual Vending Machine

Planning: 

Coca-Cola, historically a market leader, faced a challenge to maintain its prominence. Despite the increasing popularity of smoothies, energy drinks, and other soft drinks among younger consumers, Coca-Cola remains deeply rooted in people's affections and stands as the top-of-mind choice for future purchases.

Coca-Cola is a 20th-century cultural icon. The most democratic of drinks as Andy Warhol once described it, but in 2023, all soft drinks are not equal in the eyes of Gen Z. From influencer-hyped energy drinks like Prime with massive cultural strength to smoothies, Coca-Cola was fighting for relevance and cultural resonance.

Strategy:

To make people believe that this product was the "Best Coke Ever" we needed to drive trial in a way that not only sparked interest but also encouraged repeat purchases. 

Understanding CCZS’s taste profile, we knew that once people try Coca-Cola they develop a lasting affinity for it, so again, driving people to trial to support repeated purchases was the critical element of the plan. 

Imagine having the opportunity to try a Coca-Cola Zero Sugar, absolutely free of charge! The thing that seems too good to be true comes to life, and we wanted as many people to try it as possible - in a spectacular way!

For anyone who grew up dreaming that Willy Wonka’s ‘Wonka-Vision’ could be a reality - this campaign would do just that. In our ‘virtual vending machine’, you can reach out and grab a Coke!

We could tell customers all day that this was the “Best Coke Ever” through visuals alone, but we asked Gen Z to try it for themselves!

Execution:

The world’s best brand needed a world first innovation and the brief to Take-A-Taste, needed to be delivered literally!  

To date, mobile control of an Out of Home Screen was reserved for one off, single screen activations with a hardware swap out and costly media domination. Our challenge was to turn every JC Decaux screen into an interactive one and with a traditional in loop media buy. 

A year in the making, we created the world’s first mobile phone controlled scale based campaign to trigger every screen by taking the 3D bottle off the screen, which also resulted in the first AR web app to use hand tracking, so the bottle re-appeared on your hand. If that wasn’t enough and integrated into the experience - Tesco Booker Group stores, for the first time, accepted our digital bar codes to redeem your free bottle in every store. 

This effective OOH trial-driving technology was powered by "Connect," a market-first, bespoke software crafted by DOOH.com in partnership with JCDecaux. This first-of-its-kind OOH innovation was the heart of this campaign, driving interaction and resulting in customer behaviour changes. 

The OOH was supported with geo-targeted social posts, and influencer content & endorsements, sparked significant online activity, leveraging other platforms popular among the target audience.

When seen online, this too good to be true offer, would normally suffer the fate of the untrusted medium, but we discovered that when the out of home ad campaign is shared online trust levels were extremely high. After all, a brand can’t lie in public! 

The retail industry has long struggled with low redemption rates, with historical print vouchers averaging a mere 4%. To address this known issue head on in this redemption-based campaign and drive higher success rates, we focused on the "holy trinity of success":

For the first time, we enhanced redemption by using the most trusted medium, out of home, made it interactive, by using ‘Connect’ and delivered an instant reward, a free Coke Zero. This led to unparalleled results, as well as delivered seismic change across all brand health statements.

Results CONFIDENTIAL

Just under 400,000 individuals accessed the app, with over 300,000 successfully completing the AR experience to receive Tesco's barcode. We saw an incredible 68% of those who received the barcode went on to redeem the bottle at Tesco.

For context, Coca-Cola's success benchmark was 14%, and Savi, renowned redemption experts, set their expected benchmark at 4% based on previous digital redemptions. Savi's highest-ever redemption code achieved a 27% redemption rate. Therefore, the exceptional 68% redemption rate has now set a new benchmark within the industry.

Within the target group of Gen Z, 'consideration' rose from 30% to 83%, 'likelihood to be seen drinking' increased from 42% to 90%, and the perception of being 'the best Coke ever' jumped from 34% to 79%.

The use of the innovative OOH technology, “Connect”, ensured not only communications between 1,500 screens around the country but also built trust between the user and ads via mobile devices, which, most importantly allowed us to move from a passive medium to a direct action medium - any brand manager’s holy grail.