Festival Bottle

Background

Coca-Cola needed to reconnect with younger people and one way to do that was through music. The task was to find a cool way for the brand to help its audience do the things they loved doing most and thus create an affinity with Coke.

Idea

The idea was a packaging innovation that transformed a bottle of Coca-Cola into the coolest means for teens to get to the summer's music festivals.

Special edition labels contained integrated detachable wristbands for the main music festivals in the country, including Transylvania's Untold Festival, recently awarded The Best Major European Festival.

People need to follow three easy steps:

1. Detach the wristbands from the label

2. Scan it with the special app to see if it was a winner

3. Use it to access the festival

There were eight different wristband designs, which youngsters immediately started wearing as a statement to others that they would be going to the top gigs of summer. They also shared the campaign content on social media.

Results

Most downloaded app in Romania, sales up by +11% vs PY (previous year), one of the most innovative and successful campaigns in Romania. And, the most important one: Coca-Cola Festival Bottle reached 75% of Romanian teens.

Our Thoughts

Coca-Cola is a brand in urgent need of creativity right now. A recent piece written by Adam Hartung in Forbes magazine suggested that "What Coke once stood for – healthfulness, vitality, spirit, ingenuity, youthfulness – is no longer true. Once holding a Coke was a sign of being part of all that was good but now the product is mostly passé."

As a boomer, my generation grew up on Coke and I have a latent affection for the brand. But as a creative person, I also know how incredibly hard it is to get Gen Z to see it as being remotely relevant to them.

The same article castigates Coke for relying on tactical promotions rather than innovating but McCann Romania, who have produced a string of consistently interesting and fun campaigns for Coke, show here that promotion doesn't have to be a dirty word. What the clever people in Bucharest are doing is showing how their ingenuity might save the brand globally.