Coca-Cola Takes a 'Walk to Beautiful'

Atlanta — Country music artist Jimmy Wayne, author of New York Times best-seller “Walk to Beautiful” (HarperCollins Christian Publishing), spent time as a teenager both in the foster care system and sleeping on the streets. His path to survival and success began when an elderly couple hired Wayne to mow their lawn and offered him an ice cold Coca-Cola when he finished.When Sue Klug, chief marketing officer at Los Angeles-based Unified Grocers, first read the book about Wayne’s life, she took notice. “It’s just an amazing story,” she says, and “it’s a case where the product, Coca-Cola, really did play an integral part in his life. It was almost like a product in a movie. It was a natural connection between the brand and the story.”An idea popped into her head, and in her role with the “several thousand” store grocery cooperative on the West Coast, Klug knew the right people at Coca-Cola and approached them. “Never before has a CPG company partnered with a book, which I think is amazing,” she says. “I don’t think it could be just any book, and it couldn’t be any product. The product had to fit and make a difference in the story.”John Mount, VP, national retail sales, customer marketing, Coca-Cola Co., says his company embraced the concept. And the idea was an immediate hit with retailers, which was essential given that the brand did not make its pitch until mid-August 2015 and the paperback version of the book released in November. Also, the connection to holiday gift-giving made a November rollout important.In addition to Unified Grocers, Albertsons and Kroger were key partners, Mount says. “They made a commitment that they were going to be in on this book in a big way.”Atypical of shopper marketing campaigns, neither Coke nor its retailers had a specific consumer profile in mind, Klug says. “It just felt like it was thematic for this time of year. It fits with a lot of what the retailers were communicating to their customers.”Albertsons felt the same way, says Kendal Callender, director of shopper marketing. “Hearing that tie-in that Coke had with the story made the joint display a great fit for our customers, and the book’s focus on hope and perseverance was a great story to tell in-store, digitally and socially,” she says. “The marketing campaign was focused on all of our shoppers as the book has appeal for everyone, regardless of age or background. Shoppers appreciate partnerships which are meaningful to them personally, as well as those that make a positive impact on the world around them.”The campaign started with storytelling on the My Coke Rewards website, which gets 23 million individual weekly hits, and in the Coca-Cola Journey online publication, Mount says. Among the information communicated was the brand’s contribution of $49,500 to Wayne’s charity, Project Meet Me Halfway, which is working to build transition homes for youths aging out of the foster care system.To help shoppers along the path to purchase, Coca-Cola and its retail partners also used a combination of Twitter, Facebook, online banner ads, landing pages and coupons. Wayne also did events at Charlotte Motor Speedway and local schools.In stores, the main piece was a floorstand that contained six-packs of Coca-Cola products in glass bottles and copies of the book.While books are generally incidental to a supermarket’s bottom line, they are always looking for gift opportunities during the holiday season, Mount says. “Some people give books for gifts, some people give glass bottles as well,” he says. “How do you bring those together?”Klug notes that Wayne recorded a couple of in-store radio spots that helped direct customers to the display, and United Grocers and other retailers included mentions in their circulars as well as via social media. Albertsons used the radio spots and displays for the full month of November and featured secondary displays with information about a free download of a Jimmy Wayne song, Callender says.In addition to book and Coca-Cola sales, United Grocers planned to measure success of the campaign, which ended in early January, around “the soft benefits of setting this tone around thankfulness and giving back,” Klug says. She suspects the success of the pairing might lead to more like it, although she cautions it wasn’t easy.“The execution of something like that is challenging, and it took a whole lot of people being very, very focused to pull it off,” she says. “If there are other brands that have such an opportunity of some sort – a book, magazine, music, whatever – we’ll see more of it. I was excited to be part of something groundbreaking in the shopper marketing arena.”“It’s not often that you do a tie-in with general merchandise and books,” Mount agrees. “It’s a complex sell, coordinating with general merchandise, second suppliers and a publisher. It’s not an easy, turnkey initiative. Our sales and marketing teams persevered to collaborate and get this done, which is nothing short of remarkable, because it does require multiple touchpoints.”

Coca-Cola Takes a 'Walk to Beautiful'

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