Coca-Cola asked us to develop a marketing model that would reverse the company’s fortunes in the $9 billion global energy drink sector. The task was to give one of Coke’s flagging energy brands, Burn, a shot of adrenaline for 43 European markets. We needed to create a major shift from a conventional FMCG communications strategy to a 24/7, ongoing dialogue with its audience of 18-25 year old males. This audience is notoriously resistant to traditional advertising; accordingly, we focused on owned and earned, rather than paid media channels. Our first task was to re-establish credibility and engagement with communities where energy played a legitimate role. Three communities - Skate, Snowboard, and Independent Music - were chosen for their influence on popular culture.

Two key insights fueled our creative approach: Young people want to make a mark on the world; they revere originality and creative expression.

And they respond to challenge.

We designed a campaign that featured and involved our audience, instead of merely reflecting their world.First, we collaborated with our communities to make three documentaries: ‘Ride’, ‘Playground’ and ‘Peepshow’, allowing them to come to life organically.We then seeded them in community channels and Burn-branded social media spaces, supported with print and outdoor placements.

To populate these spaces and our hub, Burn.com, we designed a Content Generation Blueprint for Europe-wide implementation allowing the creative communities to interact, make and play.This program created a rich interplay of grassroots experiences and editorial content, to fuel our audiences’ ongoing engagement with Burn.

Burn Studios, an initiative for the music community, involved established artists like French duo Cassius mentoring emerging talent online, culminating in a live studio session with participants’ tracks featured on the BBC. Resulting in over 1500 original remixes and 300,000 plays on the social music platform, Soundcloud. The winner received almost 1 million YouTube plays.

The films attracted 1.16 million views on Vimeo and YouTube and were embedded 281,500 times in blogs and community sites.They earned cultural impact being passed on by influential artists like Kanye West, skate legend Steve Berra, and German rock idol Tom Kaulitz.And the body of consumer-generated Burn content continues to grow.Burn is now a highly aspirational presence in the energy community.It’s achieved a jump in Europe-wide sales volumes of 15% vs 2009 including:-Hungary 43% growth -Poland 55%-Switzerland 71% -Czech Republic 162%And the process has marked a major cultural step change in COCA-COLA Europe’s approach to marketing communications.