Coke, Again, Shows Why It's #1

I am not a big soda drinker, however, there is no denying the place soft drinks hold in our culture.  I came across this piece this morning and wanted to share it for a few reasons. Check out Coke Targets Teens With Its First All-Digital Effort published by MediaPost. The piece goes into detail about how Coke intends to focus on teenagers in the coming years.

From my perspective, the takeaways from this piece are:

1. Coke is focusing on segments within a segment of their consumer audience. Yes, they are focusing on teens, but they are breaking down that profile even more by going after specific types of teens.

2. Most of the content Coke is using is less like traditional ad messaging and is actual non-ad content. Short videos, games, interactive activities. That being said, all of these individual pieces of content are tied together under a central theme (er, long term campaign).

3. The initiative is integrated and Coke is in it, according to this piece, for the next couple of years. It is clearly stated in this article that Coke will be measuring the effectiveness of all of the released content/activities and will be making adjustments throughout the initiative. Coke clearly gets that this is a marathon and not a sprint, hence the long term approach and the reliance on measurement for long term improvement. This is not a 6 week campaign, or even a 6 month campaign. This is an evolving campaign to span years.

4. Innovation. This is creating a platform/audience for Coke to introduce product and packaging innovations to an audience who clearly has no problem sharing things they think are cool or interesting via social channels. That is not to say the audience will love everything Coke does, they may not, however this is a a great market testing apparatus. If you want my thoughts on the critical role innovation plays in any business, feel free to read through the numerous other posts on that topic contained within this blog. 

In summary, I believe this will be a solid initiative to keep an eye on in the coming months and years. If Coke sticks to their guns on this and it shows results, you can bet other consumer brands will follow suit.