The Old World Meets The New World

The Digital Transformation Landscape

There is a tectonic shift in how we interact with the world around us. Increasingly there is a digital layer of information that surrounds us in our every interaction with the real world. Information about anything and everything, everybody and anybody is ubiquitous. All it took was a little twitch of your fingers. The little twitch of the fingers then went mobile and the thumb became the key that unlocks the rabbit hole. If you are still with me so far I am talking about the mobile revolution of-course.

Mobile Revolution's Impact on Consumer Behavior

It changed the way we consume media, no longer are we sitting in front of the TV (maybe few of us still are), or sitting outside on a warm sunny day reading a newspaper/magazine/book while quietly sipping a cuppa. Now we do that on the fly anytime, anywhere. For a traditional brand powerhouse like Coca-Cola such a drastic shift in consumer behavior is a new challenge. The social and cultural paradigm has changed due to technology and Coca-Cola has to reinvent itself to align with this shift. The traditional marketing communication channels have their own advantages, but you can no longer rely on them to stand out from the crowd. But Coca-Cola isn't the number one brand in the world for nothing.Adaptability is at the core of its enduring longevity in the mass conscience.

Coca-Cola's Innovative Partnership with Spotify

So it doesn't come as much of a surprise that Coca-Cola has announced a global strategic partnership with Spotify that aims to entice music lovers in an unconventional way.

The "Share a coke and song" campaign will see bottles and cans relabeled with a particular year nominated by the consumers. By scanning a QR code on the back of the bottle, they will be able to stream 50 songs from that year from Universal Music artist's catalogue. Coca-Cola says that through this customers will be able to discover new music which they can seamlessly share with their friends online and offline.

This tie-in ushers in a new era of collaboration between two disparate companies sharing a common goal of reaching out to the masses in a never heard (pun unintended) before way. It is a win-win scenario for both the parties as Coca-Cola reaches out to a hipster tech savvy generation and Spotify gets the global exposure by associating itself with arguably the biggest brand in the world. The winds of change are sweeping the landscape of marketing, and as always the key to survive is evolve and adapt. Its not the strong who survive its the ones who adapt and embrace the change. On this evidence Coca-Cola has nothing to be afraid of.