Case Studies on the best IMC campaigns

COCA COLA’S “OPEN HAPPINESS” CAMPAIGN

- Abhijeet Mishra

Following the success of ‘The coke side of life’ Coca Cola released its ‘open happiness’ campaign in the United States in the later part of the year 2009 and was an extension of the earlier campaign. It is one of the best examples of a global integrated marketing communication campaign and showcases the fact that a campaign of such caliber can do so much good to a brand. The current theme invites people from around the world to ‘open happiness’ and enjoy the simple pleasures of life like opening a bottle of coke and sharing this happiness by sharing the coke with your friends. “Central to Open Happiness is the simple notion of enjoying an ice-cold Coca-Cola and taking a small break from the day to connect with others,” says Katie Bayne, chief marketing officer, Coca-Cola North America, in an official statement. “With this new campaign, that's exactly what we're inviting people to do more often – open a Coke and share a little happiness.”

The campaign in a short time was everywhere starting from TVCs to billboards to print media to digital. The strength of every communication medium was recognized and played with very well.  A number of interesting TVC hinted at the fact as to how opening a bottle of coca cola can bring happiness to anyone. The print media showcasing the happy faces of people with a bottle of coca cola propelled the concept further. But it was not only the traditional but it was an integrated campaign in the real sense because it included new points of sale, promotions, outdoor and print advertising, with digital and music components and apart from all this Coca Cola lived its concept of open happiness by employing a variety of other experiential marketing tricks. Be it the ‘Happiness Truck’ which went through a city and stopped at various places showering gifts which ranged from a free bottle of coke to a football or a surprise water shower and all this on the press of a button. The same concept was used in ‘Happiness Vending Machines’ which were installed in several places around the World where after you enter the coin you are bound to be pleasantly surprised. There was also the ‘Hug Machine’ which would give you a free coke if you hug the machine. On the digital front there was the ‘Expedition 206’ which enabled people to participate in a competition to travel around the world. The competition was open to bloggers to participate in a group of three. The winner of the competition was decided on the basis of people’s votes and the winners get a chance to travel to all the 206 countries where Coca Cola has a presence and spread happiness there. Since all the winners were bloggers themselves they documented their visit to every country and posted in on their sites and on the official site (expedition206.typepad.com). This was followed a lot over the web and became an instant hit since the winners themselves were big influencers and had a huge following. This gave the campaign the digital presence it required. The Facebook page has regular posts based on the open happiness campaign and has the highest number of fans for any brands on Facebook.

Now all this experiences made people believe that Coca Cola is a brand that upholds its integrity. Coca Cola is really spreading happiness around the world and living its promise that one can share happiness by opening a bottle of coke. As far as the consumers are concerned they are seeing open happiness on TV and are listening to it on the radio, when outside they are seeing it on the billboards and at the point of sales, when in malls and offices they are experiencing it through the vending machines, while being on the web they are seeing it on Facebook and on the Expedition206 home page. ‘Open Happiness’ is everywhere and coca cola has been able to create an overall consumer experience which has had such an impact that people have started associating happiness with coke. Now that’s what you call success and any brand would spend anything to have that impact.

OLD SPICE’S “THE MAN YOUR MAN COULD SMELL LIKE” CAMPAIGN

- Abhijeet Mishra

In the year 2010 Old Spice was dealing with a lot of problem. The sales were decreasing and the brand was dying. The number of competitors in the men’s body wash category had been growing and Old Spice wasn’t stacking up, in addition, the brand had long been associated with the scent of fathers and grandfathers, diminishing its appeal to the younger generation, an audience with incredible buying power and influence. It was clear that Old Spice was in need of a boost and that is exactly what happened after teaming up with Wieden + Kennedy, a Portland-based advertising agency, for their marketing campaign.

In 2010 Procter and Gamble launched the “The man your man could smell like” campaign with an online commercial starring ex NFL player Isaiah Mustafa. The ruggedly handsome man in shown in a bathroom clad in towel trying to tell the ladies out there that if their men used old spice body wash they will be like him or at least smell like him.  The commercials became instantly famous over YouTube with the campaign receiving a total of 6 million views on the first day itself and have received a total of 26 million views. The talk about the Old Spice guy was everywhere on blogs and on the social media forum.  After five months Old Spice decided to take it to the new level.  They wanted to engage and communicate on a more personal, intimate level, and so “The Response Campaign” was born. On the morning of July 13, 2010, Old Spice posted a simple message to Facebook and Twitter causing the campaign to become a viral sensation: - “Today could be just like the other 364 days you log into twitter or maybe the Old Spice man shows up @OldSpice”. For two days the Mustafa aka the Old spice guy kept on answering questions or responding to mentions on twitter through videos on YouTube. For this purpose as many as 180 videos were shot and uploaded on YouTube. He responded to individual Twitter users, celebrities, and influencers in short videos continuing with the humor and candidness of the original commercial. In order to choose which comments and questions to respond to, the crew built an application that scanned the Internet and looked for mentions along with the amount of influence of each fan. The creative team then chose messages that would allow them to produce the best creative content or would have the ability to embed themselves in an “interesting or virally-relevant community. Several factors were responsible for the success of this campaign. This was successful because of the seamless integration of the online and the traditional offline media. The campaign was able to create a personal bond with the people with people waiting every day in front of their systems waiting for the next video to be uploaded and hoping that in the next video they would be addressed. The real catch point was also that the advertisements rarely mentioned the old spice brand name but was still able to communicate with the people. The result the campaign showed was outstanding. It is regarded as one of the fastest growing and most popular interactive campaign in history. Statistics of the campaign, listed below, further solidify its place in social media history.

o    Day 1: The Campaign receives 5.9 million YouTube views.

o    Day 2: Old Spice has 8 out of the top 11 most popular videos on the web.

o    Day 3: Campaign touches 20 million views

o    Twitter following increased 2700%

o    Facebook fan interaction went up 800%

o    Traffic to Oldspice.com increased 300%

o    And Old Spice became the #1 all-time most viewed branded channel on YouTube

If we take the profitability into account then the campaign caused 27% increase in the sales within the first six months of the campaign release and Old Spice in firm as the no. 1 brand for body wash for men.

The campaign proves the fact that the most important thing that is important in Integrated Marketing is the marketing mix. In this case the mix was comprised on social media and interactive marketing which are not that costly but showed superb results. This lays stress on the fact that you don’t always require mass media to have the desired outcome, the proper mix is very important and you need something more than mere communication.