Expedition 206- A Bottle Full of Happiness

Although Pepsi was the first to use Twitter, yet Coca-Cola has taken the tweets to the next level. With the launch of their ‘Happiness’ campaign, this summer (2009), Coke’s social media marketing strategy has focused on matching their marketing vehicles to their target consumers for better return on investment. 

The increase in the level of activity, interaction and engagement in brand related decision making has triggered new collaboration between the communications, public relations and marketing teams to think about the social and digital media space as a new venue for driving good public relations for the company, a new idea that takes full advantage of what social networks have to offer to expand the Coca-Cola brand. With a full year of social networking program up ahead, ‘Expedition 206’  is Coke’s new social initiative scheduled to play out on Twitter as well as on platforms like Facebook, YouTube and Flickr.

The innovative initiative places focus on fans driving the experience.  From selecting three ‘happiness ambassadors’ to travel 206 countries during 2010 to fans following the journey online; Coke’s virtual global community and its visitors will vote on where the team goes, what they do and who they visit in each country.

The Happiness Route

Through tweets, blogging and uploading on YouTube of their adventures, the happiness ambassadors will tell the story of Coke around the world and the attributes of what the brand is about. The much anticipated program scheduled to begin in January 2010 has already generated enough buzzing for Coke, bringing forth even more enjoyable and pass along content to people.