Share a Coca Cola

The campaign, Share a Coca-Cola, was launched across Europe on 1^st May.

The campaign is designed to help Coca-Cola engage directly with its consumers in 32 countries. It substitutes the iconic Coca-Cola logo on bottles of Coca-Cola, Coca-Cola light and Coca-Cola Zero with 150 of the most popular first names, nicknames and terms of affection in each country. Supported by a fully integrated marketing programme to connect consumers online, the campaign reinforces Coca-Cola’s position as an innovator within the consumer retail space.

The project combined conventional printing technology with HP Indigo Digital Printing to create 800 million high-quality personalised labels. 

 “Packaging plays a critical role in the Share a Coca-Cola campaign because it connects the physical bottle with online communication channels, including social media and user-generated content sites,” said Marit Kroon, marketing manager, Europe, Coca-Cola. “The ability to personalise such a high volume of labels with HP Indigo Digital Presses, while achieving the quality and consistency that Coca-Cola requires, opens up new possibilities for creative campaigns moving forward.”

The project consisted of eight label converters across Europe who coordinated production of the personalised labels on 12 HP Indigo Digital Presses. The presses ran 24 hours per day for approximately three months to produce almost 800 million labels.

The static content on the labels for this project was first printed conventionally on a 38-micron BOPP wraparound material and then personalised with the names using HP Indigo Digital Presses. All of the HP Indigo Digital Presses used for this project were set to the same configuration and settings for complete alignment and consistency during production.

Additionally, to ensure the Coca-Cola brand colour was maintained across all machines, HP Indigo formulated the Coca-Cola Red Ink. This ink served as the benchmark for all of the conventional and digital printing for the Share a Coca-Cola campaign. It also will serve as the reference colour for Coca-Cola in the future.

Along with the physical Coca-Cola packages, the portal www.shareacocacola.com provides a platform for consumers to experience the Share a Coca-Cola campaign virtually with friends and family across the world. Consumers can use the website to create and personalise virtual cans to send to Facebook friends. They also can share content and find out about local Coca-Cola events.

 “There’s a tremendous opportunity for companies like Coca-Cola to better engage their customers by making their brand and product stand out on store shelves through customised packaging,” said Alon Bar-Shany, vice president and general manager, Indigo Division, HP. “The HP Indigo Digital Presses proved their long-run production capabilities by meeting the needs of a project of this scale on time and aligned with Coca-Cola brand standards.”