Coke taps voice-activated skills for Share a Coke campaign

Coca-Cola has introduced a new Amazon Alexa skill as part of its marketing promotion aimed at personalising the Coke experience.

Launched as part of the brand’s new ‘Share a Coke’ campaign, a new voice-based command allows consumers to redeem a free personalised Coke with their name on it, delivered to them. To do this, consumers say ‘Alexa, share a Coke’ to an Alexa-enabled device, which them prompts a text message to their nominated mobile phone, directing them to the related website. The offer is running until 4 February.

Coca-Cola said the voice activation will be supported by a raft of creative executions across digital out-of-home displays nationally, along with digital advertising and social media, from today. The skill was developed in partnership with Versa.

Credit: Coca-Cola

“Voice-assisted lifestyles are becoming increasingly popular among consumers so at Coca-Cola, we are super excited to work with Amazon and build on the success of one of our most iconic campaigns, Share a Coke,” the brand’s CMO, Lucie Austin, said. “This campaign enables customers to share a Coke in a fun, new and innovative way via Alexa.”

Amazon Alexa Skills country manager A/NZ, Kate Burleigh, added the opportunity to get a free and personalised Coke by asking Alexa was an innovative and engaging step to delight Coke customers.

The ‘Share a Coke’ campaign, which kicked off last October and has been produced in partnership with Ogilvy Sydney, has also seen Australians given the opportunity to put their names on a Coke bottle through an ecommerce store, triggered experiential activations across major Australian cities including pop-up kiosks, a fresh TVC, sponsorship and influencer activity and OOH including digital and large format billboards. Hundreds of bottles with 1000 surnames as well as cans featuring terms like ‘bro’, ‘mum’ ‘BFF’ and ‘ ‘princess’ have also been hitting retail shelves.

The company hopes to reach 20 million consumers and has positioned the campaign effort as part of its efforts to champion diversity and inclusion as an organisation.  

Amazon Alexa skills have been coming thick and fast since the voice-based offering was launched in Australia two years ago. From finding cleaners via Airtasker, to ordering pizza with Domino's and answer questions about superannuation with MLC, voice has become an increasingly popular way of engaging consumers not only from a campaign perspective, but also as a way of harnessing brand offers and services. 

Read more: What you need to know about voice-based marketing

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