Coca cola, the most popular beverage Brand, was awarded with the Premio a la Eficacia, a Spanish price which was handed to the company in Madrid this year. The price was awarded to them due to their famous Spanish promotional campaign “Benditos Bares”, which helped not only the brand, but the hospitality Spanish industry to increase their income.
Coca Cola, new that many Spanish people drink their products in bars, and was also aware of the closing down of many pubs and bars in Spain due to the economic recession. Their campaign was based on their typical Spanish channel: Bars. The campaign achieved an increase in three points of the number of people who visited bars, compared to the figures in 2012.
Since the crisis began, bars in Spain have lost approximately 13 000 million euros in sales, and due to this astonishing figure, a total of 72 000 bars have closed down in Spain. Coca cola needs this channel to keep open, as to them it is one of their most important selling points, so they decided to create a campaign based on convincing the Spanish society to go back to their bars. To do this, the linked bars with emotional, friendship and family stories and tried to link the friendship in bars to the Spanish way of living.
The brand began to use new formats which they had never used before, and decided to involve all their staff in this campaign. They left the departmentalization and moved towards a matrix structure to make sure that all business areas were involved in the development of the campaign to ensure its success. One of the main innovations of this campaign, was the use of branded content. Coca cola developed mini tv shows such as “I+B ir más a los bares” and also programs like “Benditos Bares” which were shown on Spanish popular channels. They also introduced Line stickers with the “Benditos Bares” motto and these were downloaded more than 668 000 times by Line users.
The most surprising action, was the creation of the “San Bar-Tolo” day on the 29th of June 2013. It was created as the saint of the bars and called customers to attend their local bars to celebrate the day. Many activities and shows were planned on that day such as special tapas, music concerts, children activities etc. Another important action was the creation of the bar anthem. The anthem became one of the most popular YouTube videos and the Coca Cola web site registered more than 110 000 visits in one week.
Results
Coca cola was seen as the most trustworthy company in spain after the campaign. People began to think that the company was not just working for their own benefit, but to help bars and to get people to go out, have a drink and be happy. This made people forget about their problems and associate the brand to the idea of friendship and family values, ideas which are typical of the Spanish way of living. 80% of the interviewed bars were very happy with the initiative and are willing to repeat the San Bar-Tolo day next year.
M for Marketing 