Coca-Cola launches £5m campaign as it redesigns packaging to unify original and zero sugar variants
The redesign is the latest move by Coca-Cola to get more people drinking its low and no sugar variants as it looks to adapt to changing consumer tastes and the introduction of the sugar tax.
Coca-Cola Great Britain is launching a £5m campaign to promote a packaging redesign that will see its red colour appear across its original and zero sugar variants.
The redesign will see Coca-Cola Zero Sugar adopt the same red design original Coke — but with a black banner wrapped around the top to distinguish the two. The changes will affect Coca-Cola original taste, zero sugar, sugar cherry, zero sugar peach and zero sugar vanilla.
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The move to unify the packaging across the two brands is part of the company’s plan to encourage consumers to try its no sugar variant. Coca-Cola is aiming for 50% of its sales to come from lower or no sugar variants as it reacts to changing consumer trends and looks to offset the impact of the sugar tax (which has increased the price of original Coke).
Alec Mellor, Coca-Cola marketing manager says: “For more than 130 years, the colour red has been associated with the great taste and experience of enjoying a Coca-Cola and we want to make it even clearer that you can have that taste and experience with or without sugar. Sales of Coca-Cola zero sugar have almost doubled in the last two years and we believe this latest change will help us grow it even further and encourage more people to give it a try.”
The new look will be rolled out from September alongside a £5m marketing push. The campaign includes a 10-second and 30-second TV ad, created by McCann Europe, plus out of home advertising and a seven million sampling push for Coca-Cola zero sugar.
The advert ‘One Way or Another’ sees the central character say he doesn’t care which Coca-Cola variant he has as long as it’s Coke. It then shows a series of mirrored scenarios to highlight there is no difference in experiences ending with the tagline “An original taste, one way or another”.
The packaging redesign is part of a wider strategy to bring all the Coke variants under one brand for the first time as it looks to drive growth. That launched in the UK in 2015 before being rolled out globally.
READ MORE: Coca-Cola’s CMO explains why its ‘One Brand’ marketing strategy is going global
In 2016, Coca-Cola relaunched Coke Zero as Coca-Cola zero sugar with a new recipe and a new look that replaced the all black packaging with a new design featuring the red Coke disc more prominently on pack. In January this year, the company also relaunched its ‘First Tastes’ campaign for Coca-Cola zero in a push ahead of the sugar tax and also brought together Coca-Cola, Fanta and Sprite in a marketing campaign for the first time back in June.
