Coke by the Numbers

It appears Australia is being used to test Coke’s latest marketing ideas. Australia is a small isolated market of twenty something million people. Products and brands can be trialled, tested, and measured without affecting other larger markets.

In 2011, Coke started selling bottles with common first names printed on the labels. The marketing worked and I saw numerous friends on Facebook posting about buying the bottle carrying their name. It was undeniably fun.

As a marketing scheme I wondered if it would go international. It did not. There are a number of problems Coke would need to overcome. What names do you pick in each country? How localised will your choice have to be? Are you going to cover multiple spellings of each name? What about different scripts and dialects?

In 2012, Coke has iterated on their notion of unique labels. This time the scheme can scale globally. Bottles of Coke in Australia are now carrying years. The marketing calls on customers to buy the coke with a year relevant to them - be that a birthday, anniversary, or other notable year. A clever iteration on the original personalisation.

I also notice Pepsi has released a new brand in Australia that I have yet to see in France, Pepsi Next. This lower suger edition is being heavily pushed. It contains Stevia as a partial sugar alternative. Stevia is available as a niche sugar substitute here in France but I have seen little comment about its benefits or otherwise.