Promoted Tweets help drive purchases for Coca Cola

By
Friday, 21 February 2014

When it comes to buying a Coke, those who engage with Promoted Tweets are more likely to grab a bottle or a can, according to research we conducted with @Nielsen and Coca Cola France (@cocacolafr).

Last year, @cocacolafr decided to replace its iconic logo on bottles with 150 popular first names. We took a look at the value of the Twitter engagement the campaign was generating. The study found that Promoted Tweets can drive a big shift in the intent to purchase and that this intent to purchase increases with the number of Promoted Tweets that consumers see.

Further, those who engaged with Promoted Tweets were 16% more likely than those who didn’t engage to show a preference for Coke. And those who engaged with Promoted Tweets were 15% more likely to share a Coke with friends in the near future than those who didn’t engage.

The research underscores the growth of the role Twitter plays in shopping, and shows how Twitter helps drive message association. In this instance, it reinforced the idea that a Coke helps users connect with friends and family, and this association translated to three times the likelihood to purchase Coke.

In addition, the study shows that when Twitter is combined with a strong advertising idea and an engaging creative campaign, it can have a major impact on brand preference and purchase intent — certainly something @cocacolafr’s campaign had plenty of.

The idea was simple: give someone you love a Coke with their name on it via a Tweet or a video.

@cocacolafr#PartagezUnCocaCola

This approach helped generate high levels of engagement, with 10,000 hashtag mentions and an 18.3% lift in followers, signifying that engagement with Promoted Tweets translates to higher brand preference and purchase intent for @cocacolafr.

Those who engaged with @cocacolafr’s Promoted Tweets displayed a much higher commitment to purchase a Coke (non-engager 48% vs. engager 55%).

The research highlights how consumer association with a brand’s message is much higher when using Promoted Tweets, and it echoes the findings we published in a recent post about @KelloggUK’s @KraveUnleashed, which showed how Promoted Tweets can lead to a significantly higher intent to purchase.

Nielsen also found that Promoted Tweets can create a noteworthy lift in brand preference, which is amplified by multiple exposures to Promoted Tweets. The research demonstrates that those exposed to @cocacolafr Promoted Tweets were significantly more likely to express a preference for Coca-Cola than those who were not exposed.

Finally, the research shows the lasting influence that Promoted Tweets can have on consumers after a campaign is over: Those who believe that Coca-Cola helps them connect with friends and family in a fun way said they were three times as likely to share a Coke in the near future than those who do not have that association.