2019 Bronze Best Launch Campaign

Agency: Send Me a Sample, M&C Saatchi Shop

Client: Coca-Cola

Campaign Name: “Alexa, Send Me a Diet Coke Exotic Mango”

Campaign Overview

Coca-Cola needed a more effective, integrated and measurable product trial to launch Diet Coke Exotic Mango and for its 2018 Holidays are Coming Christmas campaign. The challenge was to find new ways to tempt more consumers to “try before they buy”.

Strategy

It’s proven at Coke that if people try they are much more likely to buy. The world’s biggest soft drinks company therefore understands the critical role of trial for launching new products and driving growth.

Solving this through traditional sampling has limitations. Ethnographic research revealed on-street sampling creates significant waste and, critically, can’t be targeted or measured alongside other campaign media.

Coke was keen to discover alternatives that integrated with other channels, specifically peak-time TV; would also give national reach; boost family sharing; drive data collection for acquisition; and could be measured.

Voice-activated product trial and customer acquisition was the answer. Coke partnered Send Me a Sample, the world’s first voice-led brand activation platform from M&C Saatchi Shop, to make brand communications voice responsive and send free trial packs to the nation at home.

Creativity

Research from Send Me a Sample demonstrated that voice could offer Coke the right solution. Smart speakers are now present in one in 10 UK homes. Additionally, there are over 8 million people in the UK using voice via mobile. If successful, Send Me a Sample could activate planned advertising spend and drive measurable, higher-quality, demand-led in-home product trial on a mass scale across the country.

The creative strength behind voice campaigns lie in Send Me A Sample’s ability to activate mass broadcast media channels in a new and engaging way through the use of voice technology.

For the Diet Coke Exotic Mango launch, a 10-second tail was added to the end of the TV ad with the call to action: “Get four cans of Diet Coke Exotic Mango sent your home for free. Just say to your voice assistant, ‘Ask Send Me a Sample for a Diet Coke’.”

By integrating response and trial into the core mass-reach TV, Coke was reaching families at home with an engaging offer, and a frictionless way to respond. All consumers needed to do was lean over to their Alexa or Google assistant and ask.

Results

• 200,000 Diet Coke cans sent to 50,000 homes in under two weeks
• At peak, 5,000 responses per hour
• 40% conversion to purchase
• 45% opt-ins to ongoing communications from Coca-Cola

• Nationwide reach - trial packs were sent as far and wide as the Scilly Isles and the Orkneys. No previous sampling activity had been able to achieve this scope of distribution.
• At-home trial for all the family (four cans per household)
• Follow up opportunities to drive purchase conversion
• Opt-in data of highly engaged people who had responded to the advertising and were enjoying the products at home

The Team

Richard Hill, Co-founder, Send Me a Sample M&C Saatchi Shop; Will Glynn-Jones, Co-founder, Send Me a Sample M&C Saatchi Shop

Contributors

Mediacom