Right before the Romanian referendum against equal rights for sexual minorities, when no brand ever came close to the tension, avoiding to talk about such a hot topic, Coca-Cola managed to break the silence by coming up with a timely reaction promoting universal love. It triggered a massive wave of press reactions, engagements but most importantly, it transcended our product and our channels and encouraged other brands to react as well and adopt our message in support for sexual diversity.

While Europe opens to same sex marriage, on the 6th and 7th of October 2018, Romania held a referendum to change the constitution to legally ban it: from the union of two persons into the union of a man and a woman. Even though gay marriages are not legal due to Civil Laws, their objective was to make it even more difficult for people to have this right in the future.

The tension split the country. With only 26% of Romanians being in favor of same-sex marriages, ranking us among the lowest in the EU, according to PEW Research center in 2017, the issue was too hot to touch. Brands were acting like nothing was happening.

A big brand like Coca-Cola wanted to react and break the silence, hoping to set an example for other brands, staying true to its brand values: inclusiveness, equality and togetherness.

Coca-Cola needed to find a way to break the ice and express their point of view while keeping the conversation on a positive note. Social media was the perfect medium to launch the conversation and get everyone else to join. To set an example, so other brands could easily follow, before the referendum, we created a post promoting universal love, that was using the iconicity of our bottle at the heart of it and that could easily be adopted by others.

Only 26% of Romanians are in favor of same-sex marriages, ranking us among the lowest in the EU, according to PEW Research center in 2017. The issue of sexual diversity was too hot to touch. No brand wanted to be caught in the middle, and without a first case of a brand supporting sexual diversity, even though the country was boiling, brands were keeping their eyes closed to the matter. Coca-Cola is a brand that stands for inclusion, no matter the race, views or sexual orientation. We wanted to walk the talk and break the vicious circle of silence in Romania, by setting an example, so other brands would feel inspired and encouraged to talk about the issue. We were hoping that if a big brand like us would take a stand, others could follow our lead to inspire people towards togetherness.

One week before the Romanian referendum, we launched one post promoting universal love. Using the Coca-Cola iconic bottles we showcased three types of couples that were promoting sexual diversity alongside the copy “we see no difference” and the hashtag #samefeeling. A simple format that could easily be replicated by others, so the message could travel beyond our brand and our channels. The post was instantly followed by a wave of press reactions and was share massively triggering a chain of reactions from other brands that used their products in the same format to promote the message. This amplified and kept the conversation going for the entire week before the referendum. Most importantly, with other big brands taking a stand for the cause, it showed everyone it’s only normal to advocate for equal rights.

· 2.3M unique users Reach on social only – 44% earned reach (source: Facebook Business manager, 2018) over the objective of 20% organic reach

· 4.3M Impressions – 53% earned impressions (source: AdUnity, 2018)

· 88K Engagements – 65% earned engagements (source: Facebook Business manager, 2018)

· 8.4k Comments

· 37k Shares

· Viral content on posting day: 637k Unique users due to viral content snowball effect

We identified 300 public mentions around this subject - all earned

Large communities of media outlets rolled the news: republica.ro, hotnews.ro, evz.ro, stirileprotv.ro, b1.tv.ro, Pro TV, Digi24, Antena 1, Vice.