A Book and a Diet Coke
When Coca-Cola researchers found that Diet Coke drinkers read seven or more books a year, company officials got in touch with a handful of publishers that included News Corp.’s HarperCollins, the Doubleday arm of Bertelsmann AG’s Random House, and Pearson PLC’s Penguin Putnam line. Coke officials said they wanted to place excerpts from new books in 12-packs and 24-packs of Diet Coke “as a way to connect with customers in a personal way and add to customer value,” according to Tim Hawkes, managing partner of Westport, CT-based Trade Zone, which handles the effort.
The bookish program focuses on Diet Coke drinkers, 60 percent of whom are female and nearly all of whom are adults. Coke officials had about one-eighth of an inch of reserve space for the excerpts.
“This promo says to the Diet Coke drinker, ‘We know who you are. Here is proof of that.’ No ‘We’re giving you a dollar off’ or anything. The perfect value-added premium,” notes Hawkes.
Beginning Feb. 1, supermarkets and convenience stores will become sampling venues for authors such asBarbara Taylor Bradford, Lisa Scottoline, Nora Roberts and Elmore Leonard, whose excerpts will appear on some 35 million packages.
