Putting Customers to Work - ' Power to the People '

For Coca-Cola, the embrace of its customers is a strategic move, says Daly. "We have to stay constantly connected to the things that are important to our consumers, and we need to retain brand value and relevance in an era of Yahoo! and Google. Whatever environments attract teens on a global basis—the Web, mobile phones, gaming—we need to be there," he says.

But user-created content goes beyond chasing kids to their latest hangout. Coke sees it as a way of tapping into its core brand message. The homemade clips are meant to be part of a tradition that includes famous television commercials, like the one showing happy hippies warbling on a hilltop about buying the world a Coke, or "Mean Joe" Greene throwing that kid his football jersey.

"There is a huge inventory of messaging dating to the 1910s that at its core is about optimism, making positive choices, and positivity having value," says Daly. "Coca-Cola Classic has always found ways of being current, and the brand has always been in the hands of the customers. When they buy the product, they are making it their own. The challenge is to create an online expression of that point of view. Self-expression is another word for consumer-generated media. Rather than visiting a site where we tell the customer what the message means, we built it around people telling each other what it means," he adds.

Daly says the "Coke Side of Life" campaign, which launched in July (concurrent with the shift of the Coke and Coca-Cola .com Web addresses) is building momentum and showing signs of resonating with its target markets, although he did not provide sales data to back up that claim. Over time, the campaign will reach all 200 countries in which Coca-Cola does business, with Coke.com intended to be a primary destination for teens around the world. Musical uploads, including an alliance with Apple iTunes in Europe, figure large in the strategy. "People aren't singing about Coke, they are singing in an environment provided by Coke," says Daly.

He stresses that user-created content on the Web is part of an integrated marketing message, not an end to itself. "All channels play a role, and we do everything we can to tie it all together. Maybe TV makes you aware of an event, and you go, and blog about it, and other people read that and go to the next show, and someone ends up adding music to our site. It's a virtuous circle, online and offline, and the strategic thinking behind it is that it plays out in real life," adds Daly.

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