The Middle East has one of the highest youth populations. But, Pepsi dominated the youth's share of heart and pocket. To be successful, brand love needed to be won. How could Coca-Cola improve its brand love with the youth? Love would come from tapping into their passions and making them happier. So, we needed to go beyond an oft-trodden and unsuccessful strategy of promotions.

Culturally, music is a passion point with the youth. Culturally, the youth were seeking a balance between tradition and modernity and finding the best of both worlds meant a lot to them. If Coca-Cola had to give a stronger emotional pay-off than Pepsi, we had to own music as a platform in a unique and remarkable manner, and how music could bring the best of both worlds (tradition + modernity, east + west, our region + the world) and open happiness through harmony.

This would help us differentiate from the clutter of generic sponsorships (of talent shows) and superficial music advertising (using celebrities without any real insight/cultural relevance)deployed by Pepsi to appeal to the youth.

We introduced Coke Studio, a multi-channel branded content program, calling the youth to sing together with the world.

1) A TV program of 9 episodes on MBC where an influential Arab artist collaborated with a popular international artist to create one original and amazing fusion song.

2) Episode highlights on web and social media channels

3) Behind-the-scenes raw footage online

4) The region's first social media playlist where they could co-create songs with a leading artist

5) The region's first live interactive hologram concerts where youth could perform a live song with a leading artist before a concert-like audience.

+ Coke Studio was a breakthrough success with the 3rd highest ratings on Arab TV vs. other programs airing in the same time segment.

+ On a business level, Coke Studio increased Brand Love Score with the UAE reaching 3.1 for the first time ever, while across the region, association with music grew by +6 points and brand favouritism grew by +2 points due to the positive association with music (a 51% increase), a very positive growth for the brand Coca-Cola.

+ Tens of thousands of mall visitors watched the live hologram concerts, and over a thousand people participated.

+ YouTube channel and the videos overall got over 1,196,000 video views and 4,020 subscribers, and Twitter got over 7,000 followers, and over 400 fan content videos.

+ Its social media currency grew with its Facebook page reaching a 35% engagement score after just 10 weeks - a phenomenal rate - and its fans grew to 1.1m with just the first Season.

+ Coke Studio's social content and experiences generated 'Always On' Brand conversations: 18,402 social media mentions with over 90% positive sentiments. 78% of those mentions praised the idea of fusion and collaboration.