Coca Cola’s Open Happiness campaign has been on for quite some time. Some of us would have heard about it and seen some of the ads.
We all know how Coca Cola uses social media to engage its massive worldwide supporters. This time round, Coca Cola is taking an interesting and bold approach towards social media use.
According to the Canadian Press, the soft drink giant “will send 3 bloggers to more than 200 countries in a year to uncover what makes people happy, as part of the soft drink maker’s “Open Happiness” campaign.”
Coca Cola calls it the Expedition 206, and it is currently at the last stage of selecting its final 3 bloggers.
Adam Brown, director of Coca-Cola’s Office of Digital Communications and Social Media explains:
“It’s not about having the Coca-Cola brand first and foremost, centre of the screen,”
“It’s about telling the story that involves Coca-Cola, that involves the attributes of what Coca-Cola is about, optimism and joy.”
Coca Cola will cover the bloggers’ travel expenses and on top of that, pay them a salary – not too bad of a deal huh. The bloggers are expected to move from country to country at breakneck speed, meet locals and participate in local events. Besides blogging about their experience, consumers can also suggest a to-do-list for the bloggers to check as the expedition unrolls itself.
Pushing social media marketing to a new level?
This is probably one of the most serious social media marketing attempts done by a big brand. I’m pretty sure many advertisers are watching it closely to see how this campaign works out.
Perhaps the success of this campaign will push social media marketing to a higher level, breaking the conventional Twitter and Facebook fan page marketing campaigns.
