The on-pack call-to-action from Coca-Cola and Rogers
The Coca-Cola Co. is ramping up its mobile loyalty initiatives in North America by partnering with a Canadian wireless carrier to drive participation in its “Twist TXT Save” program.
In conjunction with Toronto-based Rogers Wireless, the beverage giant issued mobile calls-to-action via email, its Web site, the carrier’s site and on-package. The partners are running an under-the-cap SMS promotion along with the “Summer’s Sweetest Moments” MMS sweepstakes.
“Coke has been doing this for years—you can go online to enter the codes or do so from your cell phone by texting them in,” said Julie Ask, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research, Boston. “You have to sign up online for the program—name, address and carrier.
“You opt-in to have promotions—mostly their sweepstakes—pushed out to you occasionally,” she said. “What is interesting to me here is Rogers’ involvement.”
The mobile medium is a key component of Coca-Cola’s loyalty and customer relationship management initiatives (see story).
Twist TXT Save, AirBonus
Coca-Cola has successfully turned its classic Coke bottle into a mini-retail environment to run direct-to-consumer affinity programs.Coke prints a unique PIN under the bottle cap which acts as a proof of purchase.
Rogers subscribers who text the under-the-cap PIN number to the short code 42653 get $0.75 off their mobile phone bill or $1,000 iCoke points.
Coca-Cola single-serve bottles in stores across Canada carry the following mobile call-to-action:
“This bottle gets you $0.75 off your Rogers Wireless bill. Get PIN under cap & text to 42653 to redeem or get 1,000 iCoke Points @ iCoke.ca. Max 10 discounts/customer/week.”
Here is a screengrab of the call-to-action on the Web site:
Coca Cola has taken this in-store strategy to the next level in Britain (see story).
In Britain and Canada, Coke Points can be instantly redeemed on O2 and Rogers Wireless networks for an instant credit on wireless minutes.
It is only a matter of time before United States carriers take advantage of similar opportunities.
“Airbonus is an exciting opportunity for brands as it offers a new way of driving a sale without discounting the product,” said Gary Schwartz, CEO of mobile aggregator Impact Mobile, Toronto.
“Airbonus is an exciting opportunity for brands as it offers a new way of driving a sale without discounting the product,” he said. “Airbonus eliminates the need for clearing houses and offers a mobile CRM channel.”
Coke’s program works as an affinity channel in any store allowing the consumer to text message the PINs to collect Coke Points.
Promotional PINs are alphanumeric codes found on specially marked Coca-Cola products and on special promotion materials that can be redeemed on both via mobile and online.
These PIN codes give registered MyCokeRewards Members in the U.S. and iCoke in Canada of the chance to collect iCoke Points and instantly win prizes. Everyone who enters a PIN code receives the number of iCoke Points.
Consumers work to accumulate points to redeem against tickets and other valued swag.
“What I like about this new campaign is that it leverages immediacy,” Ms. Ask said. “People are more likely to redeem these points if they don’t need to carry them around in their pocket until they get in front of a computer.
“And, Coke gets to know when and where people are buying and consuming drinks,” she said. “It offers all the benefits of sweepstakes—lots of excitement and people buy more cokes, but it doesn’t deliver qualified leads.”
In addition to the service providing a revenue stream for the carriers that have increasingly become disenfranchised from the mobile marketing and advertising value chain, the service, called AirBonus, could revitalize a dying rebate business, as there is no need for clearing houses and the shopper does all the work.
Most importantly, there is an instant rebate: Cash in hand for the mobile consumer.
This provides a compelling value exchange for consumers: Redeem loyalty points on a handset and the brand will top up minutes on the same redemption device.
Coke is using the phone as retailers use a plastic loyalty card.
The value exchange can be moved seamless on and off the card, or in this case, the mobile phone.
Ideally, the mobile program would eliminate the need for a rebate or coupon clearing houses, cutting out time delays or intermediaries between the brand and the shopper.
Summer’s Sweetest Moments via MMS
Coca-Cola is also running a mobile sweepstakes in partnership with Rogers called Summer’s Sweetest Moments, which has the tagline “Celebrating Canada’s Freshest Summer Pics!”The call-to-action appears on the iCoke.ca Web portal:
“Want to win a BlackBerry Pearl 9100 smartphone plus a $100 Rogers Gift Card? Enter the Summer’s Sweetest Moments Contest! Click here!”
Consumers are asked to text in pictures from their Rogers mobile phone to the short code 42653 to win a BlackBerry Pearl 9100 smartphone plus a $100 Rogers gift card.
“The photo contest is fun—it’s social,” Ms. Ask said. “Obviously, it is a lot more fun if my friends or people I know are a participating and posting—most will post on Facebook.
“The ability to post more than one place at once would be cool, both to their promotion and your own accounts on Facebook [and other social networks],” she said. “Participation here will be driven more by size of prizes than engagement with social media aspects.”
Final Take
Dan Butcher, associate editor, Mobile Marketer
Tag: coca-cola
Firstly, here’s an interview with Adam Brown, Head of Social Media @ Coca-Cola.
About that social media policy, it’s only 3 pages. It doesn’t have to be 100 pages long and cover every last point under the sun. It should be an addition to existing company policy–you don’t need to start from scratch.
As Coca-Cola introduce their Social Media Policy:
Every day, people discuss, debate and embrace The Coca‐Cola Company and their brands in thousands of online conversations. Coca-Cola recognizes the vital importance of participating in these online conversations and are committed to ensuring that they participate in online social media the right way. These Online Social Media Principles have been developed to help empower the Coca-Cola associates to participate in this new frontier of marketing and communications, represent our Company, and share the optimistic and positive spirits of our brands.
Interesting to see are the 10 “Principles for Online Spokespeople” Coca-Cola has created:
- Be Certified in the Social Media Certification Program.
- Follow our Code of Business Conduct and all other Company policies.
- Be mindful that you are representing the Company.
- Fully disclose your affiliation with the Company.
- Keep records.
- When in doubt, do not post.
- Give credit where credit is due and don’t violate others’ rights.
- Be responsible to your work.
- Remember that your local posts can have global significance.
- Know that the Internet is permanent.
All in all Adam Brown has set a nice standard within one of the most loved companies in the world
Download the full policy here: Coca-Cola Online Social Media Principles
Interesting stuff. Mainly US brand pages, to be expected.
Top 5
#1 Coca Cola
#2 Starbucks
#2 Starbucks#3 Disney
#4 Victoria’s Secret
#5 iTunes
Top 50 Facebook Pages 2009
View more documents from Willis Wee.
Coca Cola vending machines as you know them will be
changed forever should the following be rolled out globally in the coming years. This summer, over in the US, they are rolling out what they are calling the Coca-Cola Freestyle, which is actually pretty cool. It has a touch screen to make your drinks choice through and 100 flavours, some of which have never been commercially available before like Orange Coke, Peach Fanta and Strawberry Sprite. It’s currently only being tested in their corporate HQ’s at San Diego and Atlanta but beginning this month they will be trialling 20 in live restaurants including Subway.
It sounds cliched but when some head honcho of a division of Coke said “It’s like the iPod of drink machines. We’re essentially reinventing the dispensed beverage business.” He could be right.
According to reports, it’s taken 4 years to produce and over $100m in R&D, when you’ve spent that much money purely on developing an idea, you know they’re going to put everything behind it to make it work.
They wanted to make it fun and easy to use, without reminding people of a cash machine or a computer. To do this, they recruited Vince Voron, now senior director of industrial design, from Apple to work on the project. Behind it all, it transmits data over night about what was sold and at what time that day. Already, they’ve found out that after 3pm Caffeine-Free Diet Coke spikes. Interesting.
Here’s the corporate introduction, and to follow is the ‘in the wild’ public reaction. The latter is a bit more animated..