Coca-Cola Looks to Mobile Gaming in New Marketing Campaign

An image from Coca-Cola's new ad campaign.

No, it’s not a digitized psychedelic trip, it’s Coca-Cola’s first all-digital advertising campaign. And after rounds of studying the kiddies, it’s apparently what they want.

The campaign, titled “The AHH Effect” and created by Wieden+Kennedy, a global advertising agency, focuses on digital gaming experiences for adolescent consumers. The games, which will be accessible on both mobile devices and computers, will include a variety of soda-inspired titles such as “Guide the Bubble,” “Happy Dance,” “Bottle Rocket” and “Ice Toss,” in which one click flings a piece of ice toward a constantly moving cup of Coke.

“This campaign is going to be a living experiment in true trial and error,” said Pio Schunker, the senior vice president of integrated marketing communications.

The campaign is a reaction to Coke’s belief that most adolescents turn to their phones if they’re not watching television. And while the games can be accessed on computers, Coke’s new marketing plan is grounded in the idea of capturing the attention of mobile users.

“All our experiences are designed to be inherently social and inherently sharable,” Schunker said.

Coke will also encourage adolescent consumers to create their own digital gaming experiences, which will then be thrown into a larger pool of entries. Coke will eventually select 61 digital gaming experiences as part of the campaign, and give each experience its own URL by adding an “H.” The 43rd experience, for example, will have 43 Hs in the URL. The selections will be constantly updated.