Shanghai, China – Beverage company Coca-Cola has launched a new summer campaign with offline and online experiences. Called ‘Share a Coke’, the campaign is available in Mainland China, Taiwan, Macau, and Hong Kong.

Developed in partnership with Ogilvy Shanghai under OpenX, WPP’s bespoke team dedicated to Coca-Cola globally, the summer campaign aims to turn every Coke bottle into a connection point for friends to engage and create magical shared memories wherever they are, something deeply important for digital natives.

Tapping into the insight that local Gen Z shoppers particularly enjoy the thrill that comes with surprises, Coca-Cola, alongside Ogilvy Shanghai, has created a limited-edition Coca-Cola ‘Summer Get-Together’ Bottle, with labels that transform as your drink to provide Coke lovers with hundreds of fun scenarios to enjoy the summer with their friends.

The activations also extended online to further facilitate connections through two interactive mobile games, including a WeChat-embedded game, which allows participants to shuffle their phones and generate a social poster with summer activity ideas. They can also tag their friends to meet up offline and share a Coke together. Another interactive mobile game is the ‘Metaverse Music Festival’, which uses a metaverse-inspired 3D-fication of avatars, 3D gameplay experience and a chained ‘share-challenge’ mechanism.

Tapping into the insight that local Gen Z shoppers particularly enjoy the thrill that comes with surprises, Coca-Cola, alongside Ogilvy Shanghai, has created a limited-edition Coca-Cola ‘Summer Get-Together’ Bottle, with labels that transform as your drink to provide Coke lovers with hundreds of fun scenarios to enjoy the summer with their friends.

The activations also extended online to further facilitate connections through two interactive mobile games, including a WeChat-embedded game, which allows participants to shuffle their phones and generate a social poster with summer activity ideas. They can also tag their friends to meet up offline and share a Coke together. Another interactive mobile game is the ‘Metaverse Music Festival’, which uses a metaverse-inspired 3D-fication of avatars, 3D gameplay experience and a chained ‘share-challenge’ mechanism. 

When entering the game, users are invited to customise their avatar and choose one of four scenarios to music-battle their friends. Played just by finger tapping, each gameplay is rewarded with special lucky draw coupons, with the added excitement of out-dancing friends over the summer. As players invite their peers to join the challenge through social sharing, their avatars will all appear on stage at the same time – a way to foster connection even in the virtual world. 

Elsa Gu, Coca-Cola’s Senior Creative Manager for Greater China and Mongolia, said, “Coca-Cola has always been a beacon for connection, and this year more than ever, we wanted to bring the real magic of summer to life by inviting consumers to unlock fun activities and celebrate moments of shared happiness with friends around their favourite drink through a range of offline and online story doing experiences, as well as interactive meetups in the metaverse.”

Meanwhile, Ole Luk, Coca-Cola category lead of OpenX in China, commented, “We are uniquely placed to help clients create impact in the current macroeconomic landscape through the cross-capability OpenX team setup. This campaign is a fantastic example of the power of borderless creativity in producing work that generates stronger bonds between the brand and its target audience.”

Coca-Cola said that the entire campaign was amplified on social, as Ogilvy produced short humour-filled videos that went viral on Weibo and Douyin, generating over 140 million impressions.