Coca-Cola has partnered with iTunes to offer European Coke drinkers not only 2 billion chances to win free downloads from the site, but also concert tickets and iPods.
Coca-cola’s musical credentials are long-established, from achingly catchy White Stripes collaborations to wanting to teach the world to sing. Coke is footing the bill for the iTunes promotion, which also saw dance act Faithless write a song for the brand and collaborate to create a limited edition Coke bottle which will be available until August. Downloads are available through promotional bottles of Coke, Diet Coke and Coke Zero over the summer.
The work is being rolled out across Europe, with a series of gigs and grass-roots festivals taking place across the continent, organised by both brands. Coke’s website also allows budding artists from around Europe to upload their work to the site with the most popular artists being invited to play at various events. Chris Burggraeve, Coca-Cola’s European marketing director, comments: ‘Over our 121-year history Coke has had a relationship with singers and musicians for the purpose of creating music for advertising and for festivals and events we organised throughout the world. We’d lost that connection a bit in recent years, and in 2006 we said we wanted to bring that back – but in a contemporary fashion.’
Also see this beautiful in-house, unbranded work from iTunes via www.advertolog.com: http://www.youtube.com/watch
Burggraeve continues: ‘The music industry is redefining itself, and we wanted to help young artists in their first baby steps towards becoming famous. We now have something like 6,500 bands across Europe on the website… there’s never been a better chance to follow your music heart. It’s no longer a monologue where a band talks to you – now you can be then band yourself.’
