Coke leverages pop-culture and Alexa to seamlessly deliver a unique creative-commerce experience that drives awareness and favorability for the brand, while triggering easy and immediate conversion.

“I see Coke” connects consumers to content that’s not only entertaining, but something they love. This emotional connection activates consumers, shifting their mindset into buyer mode, creating a new habit while driving consumer lifetime-value up.

By leveraging the one thing Pepsi lacked, being an entertainment cultural icon, Coke hacked consumers' content consumption habits to drive purchase through this “world first” experience.

“I see Coke” is managing to convert impressions into sales through ‘content commerce’.

Whilst Coke is a global titan within the soft drink category, in KSA the brand struggles to compete with Pepsi in terms of consideration, market share and commercial presence.

Pepsi has always been a firm favorite in the Middle East, and this preference and leadership can be attributed to both cultural and commercial factors. Pepsi’s head start vs. Coke within the Saudi market has led the brand to become heavily intertwined in the DNA of everyday Saudi lives, meals and shopper culture. Not only were shelves and fridges dominated by “blue”, but even amongst consumers Coca-Cola was oftentimes referred to as “Red Pepsi”.

This advantage in the market and within culture started in 1967, when the brand was put on a blacklist due to its alleged connections with Israel. This boycott lasted roughly 25 years and allowed for Pepsi to become the undisputed lead on shelves and within Saudi hearts.

Coke is a global giant, yet in KSA it suffers with lower consideration and market share than Pepsi. While the basics of marketing such as price, distribution and product are all taken care of, the brand struggles to be loved and appreciated as much as the competition.

With that in mind, Coke wanted to find a way to break through the “blue wall” while getting closer to consumers in the Kingdom. The goal was finding a point-of-differentiation that could trigger brand closeness, naturally leading to sales.

To succeed. Coke would have to truly understand how shoppers behave not only when they shop for drinks, but also when no shelves are in sight and yet the cravings appear.

The challenge laid in devising an experience that could help Coke infiltrate culture and merge buying and consumption behaviors, ultimately making consumers crave a coke when they would usually choose Pepsi.

The challenge for Coke was to carve a space in the hearts of Pepsi-loving Saudis while turning them into Coke shoppers.

Knowing that it’s easier for consumers to crave a brand when they’re in love with it, Coke had a simple yet beautiful solution on how to activate and captivate Saudis.

Whilst Pepsi owned the ad-breaks, Coke saw an opportunity to take advantage of Saudi's average of 3h35m watching video content to turn their beloved daily activity into a conversion experience driven by the increasingly popular “Alexa”.

The partnership with Alexa turned every home with the device into an interactive activation with a shelf for consumers to buy Coke almost impulsively, removing the barrier of the “Blue Pepsi wall” from their eyes.

Once the connection happened, technology turned something meaningful into a relevant disruption, leading to a seamless and convenient commerce experience, while creating a new shopping ritual.

Coke wanted to stand out and truly engage with Pepsi loving Saudis. However, it knew its lack of relationship with them would be a problem.

As it was impossible to force its way into their hearts, Coke decided to leverage something they already loved: TV, Movies and Technology.

Whilst Pepsi ruled the shelves, Coke was the king of mainstream entertainment, being part of the big screen for decades, in hundreds of shows and movies.

Rather than shoving more ads down their throats, Coke decided to reward them with a “magical” experience simply by watching the content they already loved.

With the “magic” of technology, Coke took advantage of its presence in widely watched and loved films to engage and activate consumers through Alexa. Whenever Coke was on screen, and that craving hits, simply say “Alexa I see Coke” and enjoy Alexa’s quirky and funny responses along with free promo codes.

To bring the "I See Coke" experience to life, we cataloged thousands of hours of content. Using machine learning, we identified hundreds of Coca-Cola placements and created customized replies for every single appearance.

We then launched nationwide and automatically added the skill to Alexa Devices in Arabic and English. Without any download or activation required.

Social content and Iconic "Movie Hints" were created to drive more engagement and get followers to guess the movie based on the illustrations of specific scenes.

And because Coke is as unforgettable in the movies as it is in real life, (Like Eleven crushing that Coke Can on “Stranger Things” or Kevin McAllister having pizza and a Coke in a limo in “Home Alone 2”) we enabled people to engage with “I see Coke” and enjoy Coke offers even without spotting them live. The more product on people’s lips, the better.

Despite Pepsi’s chokehold of Saudi hearts and stores, Coke successfully found a way to tip the needle in their favor. Coke discovered a unique brand opportunity born from deep understanding of people’s preferences and behaviors. Through this one-of-a-kind voice-activated commerce experience, Coke was able to capitalize on its cultural equity to connect and convert Saudi shoppers.

Through the brand’s insistence in developing innovative commerce and experience led solutions “I See Coke” not only enabled the brand to achieve growth whilst avoiding competing with Pepsi on traditional shopper channels, but helped the brand earn Saudi’s attention, by being at the heart of cultural conversations throughout the period.

- 96% of Conversion rate on coupon redemption

- +236% Brand Mentions vs previous internal campaign benchmark

- 26% View Through Rate across multiple platforms; However, Coca-Cola achieved 49% of View Through Rate on YouTube.

- 30% increase in views vs average campaign performance.

Pepsi has always been a firm favorite in the Middle East. And this preference and leadership is due to both cultural and commercial factors, that led to the brand and consumers to get closer and ‘love’ each other. “Sales of Pepsi's products have traditionally been stronger in the region, due in part to an Arab League-imposed boycott on Coca-Cola in 1967/68, which began when the firm decided to open a bottling plant in Israel.

The freeze on Coke sales did not end until 1991.For many years its major rival Pepsico Inc. --not on the blacklist--enjoyed almost unchallenged dominance throughout the Arab world.