Coca-Cola seeks to put the fans at the heart of its tournament activation as it gives away thousands of tickets to Euro 2016 in both its host market French campaign and its activation throughout Europe and the rest of the footballing world.
Coke is rolling out a distinctly different, innovative, standalone campaign in the host nation compared to its largely uniform and fairly vanilla ticket-giveaway work that dominates its activation across other European countries and other football mad markets around the world.
French Campaign:
In addition to the regional ticket giveaway and on-pack promos and the ‘Taste the Feeling’ style TV ads, there are several innovative strands and interesting ideas within Coca-Cola’s Euro 2016 activity in the host country.
In fact, in France Coca-Cola is rolling out a huge, multi-faceted campaign encompassing TV, in-stadium, street work, airport and train station activations, plus experiential and signage assets in official Fan Zones, participating bars, plus in-store supermarket work and social media (which began months before the tournament with a vast range of assets and images leveraging the brand’s rights and on-pack branding).
It kicked off late last year in the host nation when the soft drinks giant created a tournament-specific, TV-style YouTube channel and soccer content led website called ‘The Happiness Football Club’ (http://happinessfc.konbini.com/) – which problematically rolled out while the brand was still running under its ‘happiness’ concept and therefore doesn’t dovetail neatly with its recent global re-brand.
Launched with content-led media outfit Konbini (http://www.konbini.com/) at the end of 2015, the site is slick and smart and despite plenty of front and centre Coke’s branding, the sponsor is being clever enough to ensure that its brand doesn’t interfere with the reassuringly football-focused content.
The content platform is supported across social media channels including Twitter (https://twitter.com/happinessfc & @HappinessFC),
Carapuce ou Salamèche ? Booba ou Boobies ? FIFA ou PES ? Découvrez le Fast & Curious d'@AntoGriezmannhttps://t.co/IQynBU7a94
— Happiness FC (@HappinessFC) May 17, 2016
as well as Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/happinessfc/), Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/happinessfc) and Snapchat (http://happinessfc.konbini.com/)
This is being followed by the roll out of various tournament activation strands across an integrated set of owned and paid for platforms.
For example, May saw Coca-Cola cleverly blend its bespoke bottle name campaign with its official partnership with the French team (https://www.fff.fr/) and Euro 2016 tournament rights to celebrate the official France squad announcement and the launch of French team player limited edition packaging.
Bravo @AntoGriezmann ! En route pour l’@EURO2016 ! #SavoureLinstant #ListeDes23 pic.twitter.com/MAwX5HC7xB
— Coca-Cola France (@cocacolafr) May 12, 2016
Bravo @Elia22Mangala ! En route pour l’@EURO2016 ! #SavoureLinstant #ListeDes23 pic.twitter.com/q0rHLqdqn3
— Coca-Cola France (@cocacolafr) May 12, 2016
Bravo #Lloris ! En route pour l’@EURO2016 ! #SavoureLinstant #ListeDes23 pic.twitter.com/c7CeKt8Y4e
— Coca-Cola France (@cocacolafr) May 12, 2016
A parallel pre-tournament digital strand sees Coca-Cola team up with Arsène Wenger as a brand ambassador and the Arsenal boss’s role will see him add expert comment on games through Coca-Cola web videos posted on the brand’s social channels.
On se prépare pour le coup d'envoi de l'@EURO2016 avec notre ambassadeur Arsène Wenger ! #SavoureLinstant pic.twitter.com/8zpTdoUGzX
— Coca-Cola France (@cocacolafr) May 9, 2016
Another pre-tournament competition came in the form of a French social media contest called #TheUltimateFlag: which sees fans asked five questions in order to win the opportunity to become a matchday flag-bearer during the Euros.
Tu veux devenir porte-drapeau pendant l'@EURO2016 ? Rendez-vous ici : https://t.co/86Ow8BKKMi #TheUltimateFlag pic.twitter.com/pZogeVZoR4
— Coca-Cola France (@cocacolafr) April 11, 2016
An additional and innovative element of Coke’s activity sees it team up with Snapchat to generate special branded geofilters dedicated to the tournament.
As the games themselves move closer, a real-time content team has been assembled to provide Coca-Cola’s French digital and social platforms with tournament and game-related live and low-latency content.
While on its bespoke Euro 2016 French YouTube channel, Coca-Cola will give a platform for the voices, opinions and film creative of a set of famous French YouTubers to talk about the matches in a fun and entertaining way.
International Campaign:
The European work from the soft drinks behemoth, a long-standing football supporter and UEFA sponsor, is dominated by a standard, international on-pack promotion giving away hundreds of four-ticket prizes to the tournament in France (as well as other branded merchandise – such as 250,000 official replica UEFA EURO 2016 match balls).
This giant coke giveaway is supported by an integrated marketing campaign led by TV, digital and out of home work that dovetails with its recent global brand refresh creative.
The creative executions drive viewers to the coke competition and urges fans to buy any bottle of Coca-Cola and SMS the code on the cap to 2626.
The spearhead TV spots have been adapted for local markets, but are all based around the feel and visual imagery of the brand’s recently launched ‘Taste the Feeling’ campaign.
The core Euro 2016 promo spot has been rolling out around the world in various localised versions since late April – such as in the host nation France on 11 April (with the new brand hashtag #SavoureLinstant and with copy translating to ‘We count on you and especially you, because the Blues need you . #fiersdetrebleus’).
In the host nation, Coke is also running a special set of player bottles with the stars of the French side featuring on the side of the packaging.
The German spot rolled out on the same day,
with Poland (1 April),
Austria (5 April and fronted by David Alaba),
and Belgium’s (7 April)
all launching a few days earlier than in the host nation.
While after France came Spain (15 April),
Portugal (19 April)
and Switzerland (27 April).
While a few other European markets, such as Turkey, are airing different creative.
‘As an official sponsor of UEFA Euro 2016 we want our sponsorship to celebrate the fans and bring them closer to the action,’ explains Coca-Cola GB marketing director Bobby Brittain.
‘We know that the simple act of drinking a Coca-Cola, any Coca-Cola, can make everyday moments more special and we want to extend that to the tournament to make the experience for fans – whether watching in the stadium or at home – an unforgettable experience.’
All the spots also share the ‘Taste The Feeling’ music campaign track Avicii vs Conrad Sewell
Overall, in typically well-prepared style, Coca-Cola had already finalised its regional Euro 2016 agency line-up before the end of 2014.
The drinks giant’s work is being run by five agencies in total: with Spanish-based SRA Rushmore handling content activity, Ogilvy Frankfurt spearheading the digital work and M&C Saatchi Sport & Entertainment running PR.
MediaCom is handling the connections planning and Geometry Global is looking after the shopper marketing.
Comment
This work follows on from Coca-Cola’s Euro 2012 ‘Super Fan’ pan-European campaigns (see case study).
Coca-Cola is one of 10 UEFA sponsors with official rights to the tournament: its fellow global Euro 2016 sponsors are Carlsberg, Continental, Hyundai-Kia and McDonald’s.
Like so much Coke official sponsor activation, its UEFA Euro 2016 work looks to make everyday moments special for fans and to bring them closer than ever to the action on the pitch.
Running its major sponsorship activations under the new, global ‘Taste the Feeling’ strapline (launched in January) and campaign sees Coke continue the same consistent marketing approach despite replacing its seven year-old ‘Open Happiness’ tagline.
After some disappointing recent sales results, Coca-Cola will be hoping that its 2016 Euro and Olympic campaigns can boost sales.
Links
Coca-Cola France:
Coca-Cola Belgium:
Coca-Cola Germany:
Coca-Cola UK:
Euro 2016:
Euro 2016 Twitter:
Euro 2016 Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/uefaeuro
Euro 2016 YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/UEFA.tv
Euro 2016 Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/uefaeuro/
Euro 2016 Vine:
UEFA:
