Finding Coke Drinkers
AWARD CATEGORY Search Engine Marketing
CAMPAIGN My Coke Rewards 2008
AGENCY SearchRev
CLIENT The Coca-Cola Co.
When Coca-Cola wanted to build on the more than 9 million members it had signed up since 2006 for its My Coke Rewards loyalty program, it looked to search engine marketing.
Outside agency SearchRev was given a lofty goal: double registrations.
To meet that objective, paid search presences were secured on Google, Yahoo and MSN. The agency created new banners and modified existing ones to maintain consistency with ads already online. Tests determined which messages and offers had the strongest click-through and conversion rates.
In combination with the refreshed creative, SearchRev used advanced ad targeting capabilities such as geographic locations, time of day and day of the week to maximize search expenditures.
The campaign delivered. Registrations jumped five-fold, conversion rates increased three-fold and Coca-Cola’s cost per registration dropped by 26%.
“That combination of finding the right key word and creative was really what enabled us to be able to quintuple the performance of the campaign,” says SearchRev CMO Eduardo Llach.
SearchRev also greatly expanded the core keyword list to include non-Coca-Cola-related terms based on typical lifestyle and passion-based searches, such as NASCAR and fantasy baseball, and others such as sweepstakes and ring tone. The change doubled traffic for MyCokeRewards.com, prompting a shifting of marketing funds away from print display advertising to search.
“People see the packaging and watch the TV ads. Search allows them to engage in the program online,” says Monika Sola, SearchRev’s manager of client services, who oversees My Coke Rewards.
Diet Coke launched a major campaign last February around the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute’s The Heart Truth campaign. As part of the program, My Coke Rewards members could donate their bottle code entries to benefit the cause. Those who donated were automatically entered into a sweepstakes to win the red dress worn by Heidi Klum at the Oscars that month. SearchRev tied into it by using key words such as heart health, Heidi Klum and red dress.
“We got 60% of our registrations from that campaign,” Llach says.
The bump in activity is also attributed to streamlining what previously was a complicated registration process.
“We really needed a holistic approach to integrating search into our larger marketing plans,” says Karna Crawford, director, media and interactive marketing for My Coke Rewards. — Patricia E. Odell
IDEA TO STEAL
TRY SEARCH
Search engines proved to be a lucrative budget item as a means to reach people who hadn’t otherwise responded to mass media messages promoting the ubiquitous loyalty program.
