Why Coke recruited an army of influencers for food-focused campaign

Coca-Cola’s largest influencer campaign ever kicked off this month focusing on the connections people make over a homemade meal and a Coke. The global “Recipe for Magic” campaign features model and actress Gigi Hadid, Chinese actor Yang Yang and Mexican “chefluencer” Oscar Meza, separately bringing the campaign to life through TV, social media films, recipe-focused billboards, and more. But to drive the notion home locally, the brand recruited 750 “microinfluencers” to create their own interpretations of togetherness and food, most of whom are publishing on TikTok. It marks the largest assemblage of influencers Coke has ever used for a single campaign, Elif Kaypak, global brand marketing lead for Coca-Cola, said in an interview. Ad Age Breakout Brand Leaders New award honors the people behind emerging brands Enter here “We wanted to tell this story differently,” Kaypak said. “We’ve done a lot of amazing TV campaigns where we also talked about food and Coca-Cola and bringing people together. But we wanted to hear the stories from the real people. So we worked with our agency WPP and then we came up with this group of influencers. This is the first at this scale.” The campaign was developed by WPP's dedicated Coke agency, Open X, and led by Cartwright with support from Ogilvy, Momentum Worldwide, EssenceMediacom, United Talent Agency, VMLY&R and Zeno. Read more: Andrew Keller named Open X global chief creative officer @bayashi.tiktok #RecipeForMagic #兄登場 #肉にはコーク #コカコーラ #tiktokfood #asmr ♬ オリジナル楽曲 - バヤシ🥑Bayashi The business goals of the campaign were to strengthen Coca-Cola’s position as a meal companion; lean into the brand’s equity in moments of joy, particularly with millennials and Gen Z; and “make Zero a hero,” promoting Coke Zero Sugar, Kaypak said. Early results suggest the campaign is working toward those goals. Content from the three stars has 59 million combined views “and it’s growing day by day as the local influencers are posting,” Kaypak said. The Hadid video, which shows her hosting a pasta-making party with friends, was Coca-Cola’s most engaged Instagram post ever, with nearly 1 million likes and 3,000 comments as of Monday. 3 ingredients “Recipe for Magic” includes three elements—a moment of connection, food and a Coke. That helped to simplify the brief shared with the army of influencers recruited to join in the campaign, Kaypak said. While Coke calls itself universal in appeal, food tastes change from place to place, necessitating local expertise. “When it comes to food, it’s local. And if you want to have the local relevance, we needed more local creators,” Kaypak said. “These are real people. They’re foodies—all of these people chosen together with our agency have a food connection. None of them is an actor or an actress.” Contributors cooked up everything from Swahili wet fry beef to wagyu steak. @yamakawa6666 Coke with Wagyu steak🥤🥩 #RecipeForMagic #レシピフォーマジック #肉にはコーク #美味しいに決まってる #コカコーラ #pr ♬ オリジナル楽曲 - NORA🇯🇵 @chefalimandhry It’s always a pleasure to host and have family and friends at home for iftar dinner, today I made my delicious Swahili Wet fry beef also known as ‘Nyama ya kukanga’ with my magical secret ingredient ‘Sumac’ this dish goes really well with Mahambri and ‘Viazi vya rojo’ Swahili saucy potato we are pairing the meal with an ice cold Coca-Cola Zero Sugar. What’s your Recipe for magic? Share with us your favorite recipe for magic Coke® moments we would love to see. Saum maqbul #RecipeForMagic #CocaCola #Fyp #foryou #foryoupage #4u #couplevideos #ChefAliMandhry #dijalartiste #Ramadan #Recipe ♬ original sound - Chef Ali Mandhry “What happens around that meal table—you share hopes, you share your stories, your celebrations, your sorrow, the deepest family secrets are revealed, you announced an engagement,” Kaypak said. “So we opened it to the creators to share with the rest of the world, their recipes for magic, hoping to create some movement in consumers who would do the same thing.” ‘Brave media usage’ Coca-Cola intends to keep the “Recipe for Magic” campaign for the rest of the year, with influencers providing additional content or new creators coming in, depending on the local market, Kaypak said. “The key here is to continue looking at the results and improve,” she said. While Coke vetted each of the influencers through its legal and trademark processes, the brand gave them the freedom to interpret the brief as they saw fit. That was a balancing act brands need to get used to, Kaypak said. “I think this is brave media usage for us,” she said. “Putting TV copy on TV channels is easier in terms of buying. But creating this influencer army and vetting all of them, making sure they have enough freedom, versus also [staying] in the brand guardrails, it’s a tough one. But I think we need to push more for this in Coca-Cola if we want to keep engagement with the young generations.” @nathallae Mój przepis na Magię! 🥰 #PrzepisNaMagię #CocaColaPolska @Coca-Cola #prosteprzepisy #macandcheese #makaron #RecipeForMagic ♬ Clock It - Chris Alan Lee The campaign follows the success of last year’s “Magic Weekends” campaign, which boosted sales of Coca-Cola combo meals by 3.5 times and generated a 50% sales lift in outlets with Zero Sugar availability, according to the brand.

Why Coke recruited an army of influencers for food-focused campaign

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