On June 28, 2017, Coca-Cola's biggest goal was to have an engaging idea targeted to its employees to celebrate International LGBT+ Pride Day. This initative was led by the Coca-Cola Diversity Committee.

What Coca-Cola did not know was that this idea would extrapolate the company's office and dominate conversations on all social networks in the period, becoming the campaign with the greatest organic engagement in Brazil in 2017 **

But where did this idea come from?

The world is full of homophobic expressions like "he plays for the other team" or "pillow biter". In Brazil, people also say: "This Coke Is a Fanta". For years, people have not only insulted others with this expression but created thousands of offensive memes and songs.

The Internet* showed an average of 1,500 mentions to the prejudiced expression "This Coca Is a Fanta".

Coca-Cola decided to take a stand. To celebrate International LGBT+ Pride Day, it launched a limited edition of cans: a Coca-Cola with Fanta inside. On the can label, the message: "THIS COKE IS A FANTA, SO WHAT?". These cans were produced and distributed among the company employees.

A special can who faced and challenged this expression rooted in Brazilian culture, empowering a whole community.

People instantly engaged and connected with the idea, creating a great internal buzz that eventually leaked outside the company in Rio de Janeiro. Within hours, there were images being posted and shared on social networks.

By linking Coca-Cola's name with diversity, the brand returned the questioning to society in an incisive and affirmative way and made thousands of LGBT+ people proud of being who they are.

The great impact of the idea "This Coke is a Fanta" came from the transformation of an expression full of prejudice into an expression of empowerment. If before, people used this expression on the Internet to embarrass the LGBT+ community, after the action this same expression became a symbol of pride.

The idea changed the way people looked for this expression on the Internet: before, we saw that "This Coca is a Fanta" was synonymous with prejudice ... the following week, the expression was more associated with pride. ****

The mentions of the expression "This Coke Is a Fanta" grew by more than 247% * in the can launch week.

The product was the most powerful vehicle of the idea. With $ 0 of media investment (only the cost of producing the cans), the can reached a total of 1,068,984,850 impressions in PR repercussions, appearing in more than 219 articles in the campaign week. **

Not only did the mentions of "This Coca is a Fanta" have reached a peak of more than 72,000 mentions * but they were also able to reverse its negative connotation into something positive.

The brand was widely refered and connected to the action: the brand mentions increased by + 658% during action period and the positive perception of the Brand grew by +10 percentage points. ***

Source:

* Sprinklr

**Sprinklr/ Similarweb

*** Netbase

****Google Insights

The expression "This Coke is a Fanta" was already a part of Brazilian culture and popular sayings, so the idea had a seamless and natural fit with the local culture. The fact that we used the product to bring this expression to life in a very simple way - by putting Fanta liquid inside a Coca-Cola can - gave the idea the viral power it had. Everyone was very familiar with the expression and people were eager to share it with friends and family who also knew it. More than that, a lot of them used the can to reinforce a pride speech rather than an old homophobic one.