The multimillion-dollar execution used a vast array of marketing channels, including online and social media, as well as TV commercials and in-store marketing.
The most high-profile part of the campaign was the 150 different people’s names printed on labels of 450mL and 600mL Coke bottles.
Beyond the branded bottles and cans being sold in stores, Coke also urged customers to create ‘virtual’ personalised bottles that they could share via their Facebook accounts.
Coca-Cola public relations manager Sarah Kelly described the work as a “first for Coca-Cola and its label supplier” noting that expert technicians had been flown in to oversee the highly complex variable job.
“To ensure the correct distribution of names in store for ‘Share a Coke’, we needed to have the 150 names randomised on label reels,” she said.
“To do this we needed to incorporate a variable printed image into the existing Coca-Cola label design. This had never been done on such a large scale and the existing printing process was unable to deliver the required level of variation.”
Labelmakers, which is headquartered in the Melbourne suburb of Somerton, combined variable-data capabilities with conventional printing methods.
National marketing manager Domonic Calderan told ProPrint there were a number of challenges relating to printing the high-profile job.
“The main challenges of this project were the short timeframe, the logistical scale, varying pack sizes and developing something that had never been done before,” he said.
“It was a real challenge to our innovation team to really think outside the square to incorporate new digital technology, combined with our conventional printing processes to achieve an outcome that met our customer’s expectation.”
Labelmakers claims to be the largest label manufacturer in Australasia, with manufacturing plants in Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth and Hamilton, New Zealand.
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