Coke Zero is the alternative brand in the Coca-Cola portfolio that provides real Coke taste without sugar and calories at the same time. Launched in 2006, Coke Zero has primarily targeted the male demographic who were health conscious but still wanted the full Coke taste. In order to grow penetration, the national Coke zero can promotion in 2014 had not only to increase sales, but also needed to improve all-important brand love metrics to drive the significance of Coke Zero among the male population.

In Germany, there is nothing that bonds males more than football, and there are plenty of brands claiming football as their main asset. Coke Zero’s asset has been football for years. However, there was still a certain amount of people not connecting Coke Zero to its biggest asset – so the promotion needed to be cut to the heart of football fans to really grab their attention.

Our campaign reached the great majority of all 25 million football fans in Germany. Even more: this targeting approach guaranteed to reach fans with a special creative of THEIR favorite team and increased the relevance of Coke Zero for the fans of EVERY Bundesliga team.

The cans became a highly sought-after piece of team merchandise and fans posted pictures of their cans all over social media. Social media posts reached top scores in engagement and had click rates far above benchmark.

The activation was highly relevant for the fans, much more than any Coca-Cola promotion before, as the outstanding results show:

Not only were all of the 5 million cans sold in no time, we also achieved an all-time high for the relevant brand love metrics (brand I love Index 133), making this the most successful can promotion of the entire German Coke portfolio of the last decade in Germany!