Coca-Cola Spain

How can a soft drinks brand connect with the passion Spanish people feel for bar culture?

Challenge

@CocaCola_es wanted to extend its offline Benditos Bares (‘Bless the Bars’) campaign and recognise the important role bars play in Spanish life.

Solution

Used a Promoted Trend to drive buzz and secure a prominent brand presence during the #SanBartolo celebration on June 29.

Results

  • 29.6K hashtag mentions

  • 21.6M Promoted Trend impressions

  • 2.6K new followers

Tweet

Founded in 1886 by pharmacist Dr John S Pemberton in Atlanta, Georgia, the Coca‑Cola Company is the world’s leading manufacturer, marketer and distributor of non-alcoholic beverage concentrates and syrups, and produces over 500 brands. The Coca‑Cola Company is based in Atlanta, USA, with operations in over 200 countries.

The challenge

Cola-Cola Spain (@CocaCola_es) wanted to find a way to recognise the important economic and social role that bars play in Spanish life as well as leverage its Benditos Bares (‘Bless the Bars’) TV ad campaign, which culminated on June 29 during the SanBartolo celebration.

The solution

@CocaCola_es created a Promoted Trend using the hashtag #SanBartolo to give its brand a commanding presence on Saturday June 29th and own the Twitter conversation around the national celebration.

It supported the Promoted Trend with outdoor media and organic Tweets, which featured embedded video of its ‘Bless the Bars’ TV ad. The Tweets set the upbeat tone of the campaign with copy like “Today we celebrate #SanBartolo! We honour those places where we are always happy”. 

@CocaCola_es then asked Spanish Twitter users to share their stories and pictures about their love for bars and retweeted responses from Twitter users using the hashtag throughout the day.

The brand provided shareable content on its Bless the Bars website, including pre-scripted Tweets that Spanish bar lovers could post to their timelines. These Tweets summed up what bars mean to different people with language such as “The bar is the best place to watch football!”, “The bar is where you lose track of time” and “The bar is the place where I first fell in love…”.

The campaign also benefited from high profile users tweeting along with @CocaCola_es including Spanish singer Nena Daconte (@nenadaconte), stand-up comedian Luis Piedrahita (@PiedrahitaLuis) and TV presenter and model Adriana Abenia (@abeniaadriana). @CocaCola_es shared these celebrity Tweets with its followers.

“At Coca-Cola we are always looking for innovative ways to connect with people and Twitter has undoubtedly been a key contact point in the #SanBartolo Celebration. We were really pleased with the way the hashtag worked and had excellent results.”

Ana CastroConnections Manager, Coca-Cola Iberia

3 keys to success

      1. Engage around events.
        @CocaCola_es built its Promoted Trend campaign around the #SanBartolo hashtag, securing significant share of voice on Twitter on June 29. It used the hashtag to drive buzz and invite people to share their stories and pictures. This helped bring a very human element to the day and placed the brand at the center of the conversation.
      2. Integrate across screens.
        @CocaCola_es tied in its ‘Bless the Bars’ TV campaign by embedding a YouTube video of the ad in Tweets. The video, which highlighted the celebrations, got people talking and the ad was one of the most widely shared items of content associated with the #SanBartolo Promoted Trend.
      3. Own the conversation.
        @CocaCola_es used a hashtag that was ownable, clear and relevant for its Promoted Trend campaign. This helped drive curiosity, spark conversations and encourage sharing.