Background

UM is a strategic connection & buying agency owned by IPG Mediabrands. Operating in more than 100 countries worldwide, UM is a global leader in campaign planning, media investment optimization and custom content creation. One of UM’s global clients is Coca-Cola Services. As a leading soft drinks manufacturer and one of the most recognizable brands in the world, Coca-Cola needs little introduction.

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Challenge

As a chilled soft-drinks product, Coca-Cola has some inherent weather sensitivity. UM saw an opportunity to capitalize on the upcoming summer weather with an innovative take on a traditional summer theme.

UM devised a campaign, scheduled to run during the summer months, which would take advantage of the summer trend for al fresco dining and barbecues. The focus of the campaign was to promote Coca-Cola as the perfect drink to accompany a barbecue.

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Objective

The objective of the campaign was to build reach amongst the target audience, during barbecue weather moments, via a ‘Reach & Relevancy' campaign on Facebook and Instagram. The goal was to distribute investment to the most relevant locations based on their live weather conditions, whilst avoiding under or overinvestment.
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Strategy & Execution

To achieve maximum relevancy, UM needed to display ads only in locations where the weather was predominantly sunny and above 18°C. Creative was designed around the theme of making the most of barbecue weather days with a Coca-Cola, with ad copy reading: “Enjoy this barbecue weather with an ice cold glass of Coca-Cola”.

A multi-location automation was created in WeatherAds with two weather parameters set as the activation triggers – the sun had to be shining and the temperature had to be above 18°C. Additional rules were also implemented to ensure the ads would only go live if these conditions were likely to last throughout the day.

“Doing this manually would have meant running many adsets (one per region) and then following the weather forecasts for each of them and activating the ads, which would have represented a lot of manual work. WeatherAds offered the most relevant product and service for our needs”.

Results

Since this was an awareness campaign, hard performance metrics were not tracked per se. The objective was to serve as many impressions as possible to the target audience during ‘barbecue weather’ opportunities, at or below the target CPM. The WeatherAds campaign successfully accomplished these goals and the client was happy with the results.

“The campaign did well and was dynamically active for certain regions for which the weather rule applied, whilst not increasing our CPM. We've gained in relevancy and avoided money waste.”

– Joan, Social Media Strategist, IPG Mediabrands / UM.

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