Of the experiences shared on social media, people often share their moments with music and/or lyrics.

Songs aren’t just “songs,” they’re social media captions and soundtracks that convey the feelings and emotions behind moments. In doubt? Pop culture websites often feature content such as “53 Selena Gomez Lyrics That Should Totally Be Your Instagram Captions.”

Our key insight: People use songs as a language to express themselves. Songs communicate the real meaning and emotion behind the moments worth sharing.

The idea: Make #shareacoke lyrics a language for people to express the stories and feelings behind their favorite moments while providing new reasons to share a Coke.

To spark content creation with teens, we used Shazam image recognition technology to turn our Coke bottles into a musical Karaoke experience with customizable stickers. On Musical.ly, we developed a social challenge to create videos using songs from our branded playlist.

To create participation, we reached people in real time with the perfect lyric for the moment using contextual and mood targeting in digital, social, TV and out-of-home. We targeted popular conversation topics such as squad and bae, turning up, or #blessed moments with appropriate lyrics.

We showcased engaging moments by creating the first Carpool Karaoke brand integration with James Corden, and congratulated a winning influencer with “All I do is Win” at the BET Awards. On Spotify we explored cultural moments behind our songs by building the first branded Behind the Lyrics playlist powered by lyrics annotation website Genius. Finally, we rallied influencers to share their moments with lyrics.

We ignited the conversation with 6.2 million earned and shared social expressions, more than four times that of previous campaigns.

We drove this excitement through:

• 953,000 Musical.ly video submissions (the highest ever for a brand), which generated 134 million views

• 36 million YouTube views of Carpool Karaoke (+9% vs average)

• The most-liked Instagram picture ever with Selena Gomez’s Coke photo (6.6 million hearts, 170,000 comments)

• 882 million PR impressions

By the end of the summer we proved that even in year three of the ‘Share a Coke’ program, “We never go out of style.”

To create a universally appealing language we tapped into existing social behaviors and turned our campaign into something anyone can enjoy and share, whether they are active content creators, sharers, or spectators on social media.

To start the conversation we focused on the target audience that lives and breathes social: teens, and activated the idea in three ways perfectly captured by lyrics on our packaging:

- “I’D LIKE TO TEACH THE WORLD TO SING”: Give teens a platform to create and capture their moments with music.

- “ALWAYS ON MY MIND”: Reach people in real time with the perfect lyric for relevant moments they want to share.

- “A MOMENT LIKE THIS”: Showcase other people’s engaging moments with a Coke and a song.

The “Share a Coke” campaign was a turning point that transformed Coca-Cola into the social media centerpiece of summer. For Coca-Cola, social conversation is one of the most effective media channels for achieving long-term sales growth. But after its second year, Share a Coke wasn’t new news; earned and shared social conversations decreased by 8%.

This summer the ‘Share a Coke’ campaign sang a new tune and featured song lyrics on packaging rather than names. But without the context of the music or the moments behind the songs, our lyrics such as “At last,” “All I do is win,” and “I’m only one call away” were just words on our packaging.

Our challenge was to ignite social conversation using the power of lyrics and music to drive trial and give people new reasons to share a Coke.