The Coca-Cola Company

The objective

Advertising for and with digital natives

Beverage brands are one of the many kinds of companies that have turned to TikTok in the hopes of becoming viral and ramping up sales. Companies that sell different varieties of beverages—from infused water drinks to prebiotic sodas—have taken advantage of the platform to build their brands. Beverage companies make the most out of TikTok by launching creative campaigns, reallocating their digital advertising budgets, and most importantly, tapping influencers who know the app and their audiences best.

Because smaller beverage brands have successfully launched influencer-led campaigns on the platform, even multinational corporations like The Coca-Cola Company have started to explore TikTok to advertise their products for—and with—digital audiences.

The Coca-Cola Company wanted their first foray into TikTok in Malaysia to focus on their Coca-Cola Zero Sugar product. Specifically, the company wanted to drive significant increases in ad recall for Coca-Cola Zero Sugar, and to improve its brand preference over competitors’ products.

The Coca-Cola Company had never advertised on TikTok to Malaysian consumers, but wanted to make the most out of a potential creator-led campaign on the platform to effectively promote its product.

The solution

Collaborating with partners offline and online

The Coca-Cola Company decided to collaborate with famous fast food chains KFC and Pizza Hut to promote Coca-Cola Zero Sugar in Malaysia. The company hoped that their collaboration with other brands would help more customers develop a preference for Coca-Cola Zero Sugar over competitors’ products.

This joint promo allowed all customers who ordered KFC’s Banana Chocolate Ball or takeaway at Pizza Hut worth at least MYR 25 to receive a free bottle of Coca-Cola Zero Sugar.

On TikTok, the company launched a creator-led campaign to advertise their joint promo with KFC and Pizza Hut. This allowed the company to advertise their promo in a more native, non-intrusive format that would naturally appeal to users on the platform.

They tapped two TikTok creators to advertise their collaboration: one creator who advertised their promo with KFC, and another who advertised their promo with Pizza Hut. Both creators had the freedom to advertise the joint promos however they wanted—with humor and other creative means—but both stressed that the company’s Coca-Cola Zero Sugar product was the “best Coke ever.”

To ensure its TikTok ads were delivered to its key audience, the company leveraged TikTok’s Focused View Optimization feature for this campaign. Focused View Optimization aims to deliver ads to TikTok users who are most likely to actively engage with an ad. TikTok users most likely to engage with an ad refer to users who are most likely to view the ad for at least 6 seconds, and/ or users who are most likely to interact (like, share, follow, click, etc.) with the ad.

The campaign on the platform ran for 16 days, from June 1 to 16, 2023, and targeted users in Malaysia aged 18 to 34.

Lastly, to measure the campaign’s performance on the platform, the company ran a Brand Lift Study. TikTok’s Brand Lift Studies measure the difference in key performance indicators, such as awareness and ad recall, between a group of TikTok users who are exposed to the advertisement, and another group of users who are not.

The results

Creator-led campaigns that target the right users work—and Coca-Cola proves it

Simple solutions such as working with creators and focusing on key audiences helped The Coca-Cola Company’s product stand out on TikTok. Their campaign resulted in a 4.5% increase in ad recall, and a 3.6% increase in brand preference for Coca-Cola Zero Sugar. This means an additional 4.5% of users could recall receiving the ad on the platform, and that an additional 3.6% of users preferred Coca-Cola Zero Sugar over competitors’ products.

TikTok also found a 95% confidence interval for the campaign’s ad recall metrics. This means that other brands who would like to replicate The Coca-Cola Company’s campaign setup for similar initiatives have a 95% chance of getting the same results in terms of ad recall.

Similarly, there was a 90% confidence interval for brand preference, which means that brands who want to replicate the setup for their campaigns have a 90% chance of receiving the same results in this aspect.

Corporations like The Coca-Cola Company can use a variety of solutions on TikTok’s Ad Manager to communicate to key audiences who matter most, in order to advertise in more effective ways.