In today’s retail climate growth for brands is a real challenge and even a long-established market leader like Coca-Cola constantly needs to recruit new drinkers.

Regardless of our scale we still need to ensure our brands are delivering against the conventional FMCG planning principles laid down in ‘How Brands Grow’. Fundamentally, unlocking growth still hinges on recruiting a steady stream of new drinkers from across the spectrum of the category, ensuring our brands remain interesting and relevant, and reaching audiences at scale.

133 years after Dr Pemberton unveiled his innovative new drink we are still looking for new and innovative routes to recruit these new drinkers by reminding them of the great taste of Coca-Cola.

TV has long sat at the heart of advertising, and dominates plans. However, it can also be a double-edged sword.

The UK’s favourite programmes are more than cultural moments. With everyone tuned in, they’re periods when we can also reach the nation at scale. However, such programmes are mostly viewed in home, and after 7pm… and yet 70% of Coca-Cola sales occur before 7pm and almost all are purchased out of home. This was a fundamental mismatch between driving desire (seeing a refreshing Coke ad) and being able to act on it.

So, while TV was an important tool, airing in a seemingly post-sale time-slot meant we needed to tempt customers to order there and then – and make ordering as effortless as possible.

We supercharged TV advertising, linking adverts to sampling and harnessing the power of voice.

Sampling has been central to Coca-Cola’s growth since 1886, reminding consumers of Coca-Cola’s great taste. From 1886 – 1914, one in 10 Coca-Colas were free samples and the brand was one of the first to use coupons. When sampling was paused in 1906, sales dropped. Coca-Cola has been committed to sampling ever since.

However, sampling has restrictions. Location limits how many people you can target. Bad weather undermines recipients’ desire for a refreshing drink (particularly during the UK’s dark winter months).

We wanted to improve sampling, reach everyone who wants a Coca-Cola, and let them participate from home. So, last year, Coca-Cola and agency partners invented new technology. The voice skill, ‘Send Me a Sample’, allows anyone with Amazon Echo, Google Home or Google Assistant on their smartphone to order a free sample of a product.

We executed the ?rst use of ‘Send Me a Sample’ technology in TV globally and the biggest sampling campaign of its type ever.

By integrating the ‘Send Me a Sample’ voice skill into our AV assets, families watching TV at home could watch an advert featuring the skill and request a sample pack to their home via their voice assistant.

A piece of genuine marketing innovation, with national scale and changing the game for sampling.

‘Send me a Sample’ was first used to support Diet Coke Exotic Mango. Ads appeared in two of the UK’s highest rating TV shows: “The X-Factor” and “I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here”. It can be hard for a new brand to cut through – but ‘Send Me a Sample’ avoided shelf clutter, drove awareness, and trial all in one TV advert. We then repeated the activity to launch Coca-Cola’s iconic Christmas campaign

Across our two smarter, voice-activated sampling campaigns, we delivered 100,000 sample packs. That’s 400,000 cans of Coca-Cola delivered straight to the homes of Britain.

- The ?rst activation saw 24,000 packs of Diet Coke Exotic Mango ordered in the first day

- The immediate aftermath of the advert’s first broadcast on X Factor saw customers requesting samples at a rate of 1,000 per minute

- The Holidays Are Coming activity saw 50,000 packs requested within 48 hours

The latest data from YouGov shows that 11% of UK households have a smart speaker. Assuming the 3.7m homes our campaign reached are in line with the national average for smart speaker ownership we would have reached 407,000 homes with smart speakers. With 100,000 samples requested, this equates to nearly 25% response rate from homes with smart speakers!

“Alexa…was this a success?” …. “Yes Coca-Cola, yes it was!”