Coca-Cola shares love for Wuhan

When magnolia blossoms in Shanghai,

Cherry also blossoms in Wuhan.

But at this time you can’t appreciate cherry blossom,

So I put magnolia and cherry blossom together to send my best wishes to you.

It has indeed been a tough start to the year for people and businesses globally. The world is facing a pandemic with unprecedented health and economic consequences but Coca-Cola is one company who has stepped up and shown how businesses can be a force for good in difficult times.

As China is Coca-Cola’s third largest market, maintaining sales for the beverage in China throughout the COVID-19 outbreak was of strategic importance to the company. Coca-Cola hoped to boost sales and show support for the people of Wuhan with the launch of a special Wuhan edition of their famous drink.

Only available to Hubei consumers, the Coca-Cola can featured Wuhan and other cities merging to form a heart shape with uplifting messages to show support for Wuhan and its people

The accompanying campaign on Weibo, called “Wuhan, forge ahead with love”, hit 946 million views on Weibo and 143,000 discussions within a week of their launch on April 7th.

Coca-Cola's digital marketing in China: Wuhan campaign on Weibo

They also promoted it on their official WeChat account with an article which gained 34,400 views and 2,831 wows. On WeChat and Weibo, many people added comments expressing their best wishes for the people of Wuhan, their memories of the city and desires to visit this year and eat Wuhan’s speciality hot dry noodles (热干面). 

Coca-Cola worked with famous Wuhan-born actor Zhu Yilong 朱一龙 to launch a special broadcast for Wuhan. He selected stories about Wuhan supplied online by Chinese consumers and read them out live.

At the end of their week-long campaign, Coca-Cola released a video showing a collection of letters inspired by the campaign that people had written to show support for Wuhan. The video got 93,000 views and was warmly received by Chinese netizens.

Coca-Cola’s campaign inspired people to share their experience of Wuhan, creating a sense of community which orientated around their brand. Eliciting a sympathetic response to the hardship that consumers faced during the COVID-19 outbreak gained a positive response from Chinese netizens. 

Brand: Coca Cola

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