How Coca-Cola got Asian millennials fizzing

In a report released by WARC that outlines how Coca-Cola’s sugar free product faced an uphill battle in Singapore and Malaysia, it reveals the company’s experiential marketing strategy to get Asia’s millennials fizzing again.
Coca-Cola faced “big problems” with consumer perceptions of sugar free products in Malaysia and Singapore, where it sought to launch its sugar free product earlier this year.

“When I was looking into the consumer data and insights, I was a bit alarmed, because we had some really big problems,” said Susan Tucker, senior content lead of integrated marketing communications at Coca-Cola APAC (picture).

“In Malaysia, they didn’t want to hear about it. Something without sugar was not appealing at all.”

“That sounded bitter and I don’t want anything to do with that,'” added Susan at the recent Millennial 20/20 conference in Singapore. “In Singapore, a lot of people have had Coke Zero before.

They were like, ‘That wasn’t that great, I don’t feel like I want to try this again.’”

Singapore millennials respond well to experiences so Coca-Cola invested in a blind tasting popup in the city which saw huge social media engagement, generating advocacy and word of mouth.

The Coca-Cola Zero Sugar product was introduced in-store in May across Malaysia this year, together with a new design rollout for its Coke range in Malaysia.
Some highlights from the report:
1. Be authentic.
2. Be local.
3. Consistency is more important than the latest trend.
4. Be all about them.
5. Be all about the experience beyond the product.
You can download the full report here: https://goo.gl/qrwwBi
Author: Ms Low Lai Chow, [email protected], www.lowlaichow.com
Source: Event Reports, Millennial 20/20 Singapore, October 2017