Will Coke's song-lyric bottles outdo last summer's nicknames?

This year's 'lyric bottles’, reminiscent of 2013's 'nicknamed bottles', focus on music as a catalyst for sharing a Coke. Conceived by Isobar, the campaign puts lyrics from some of China’s most famous and best loved songs on the bottles, such as "一步步完成当时的心愿" (the chorus from a Mayday 五月天 song titled 步步Step by Step; see below) and "你是我最重要的决定" (an earworm from a Christine Fan 范玮琪 number). The full list is below.

In addition, QR codes on each bottle allows drinkers to scan them to trigger an animated clip of the same song chorus, meant to be shared on WeChat. The codes signify there is digital content behind just lyrics slapped on a label. WeChat has an in-app code scanner, and with such high penetration within the mainland, it was Isobar's optimum choice of weapon.

These short musical clips are a "whole new way to consume music", said Tim Doherty, chief creative officer of Isobar China. The agency is calling these 'musicons’ (short for musical emoticons). "Musicons are to songs what tweets are to blogs," he said. "Sometimes a musical soundbite says it better, as it is more digestible.”

Last year's nickname campaign, which was an Effie China Grand Prix winner, was a hard act to follow for Coke. "It was a real challenge, a difficult second album if you like." said Stephen Drummond, senior director of content excellence, iMarketing and design at Coca-Cola Greater China & Korea.

Isobar's digital-based idea was a "worthy, if not better, followup" to last year, as an experience that "flowed seamlessly from the packaging into digital and social media,” he added. In China, consumers obtain music for free (or next to nothing) and are accustomed to it—one insight that helped Isobar conceptualise this idea.

Whether it's putting nicknames or song lyrics on Coke bottles and cans, the product itself has become a vehicle for self-expression. But will consumers get tired of it? Will there be a double hat-trick in sales again? When Campaign Asia-Pacific questioned the scale of shareability (and thus sales stimulation, since last year's efforts reportedly reaped a 20 per cent increase) for this year's concept, Doherty said last year's campaign had a factor of slight discrimination, as consumers had to fit their friends to the nicknames, and whatever nicknamed bottle one received depended on how people viewed one another.

"With this lyric campaign, people in China can signal how they are feeling with the juicy heart of a song," he explained. "It is not based on identities, but the status of one's emotions which can be shared repeatedly, because a person has a different mood under different circumstances every day."

Lyrics with general themes of life, love and happiness were chosen to coincide with the four major events in China this summer: the college entrance examination (高考), graduation season, World Cup and Chinese Valentine's Day (七夕).

"The campaign has talkability only when you get the lyrics right. So the older the song, the better its pop heritage and thus rememberability. That is the first order of engagement," said Doherty.

Above-the-line work (TV, OOH and print) for the campaign was produced by Leo Burnett; data mining, research and analysis by AdMaster, which helped pick the songs by merit of the volume and frequency of mentions on social media.

Below-the-line activity and retail activation began on 19 May, with Coke reaching out to key influencers, opinion leaders and celebrities like Chinese business magnate Pan Shiyi with personalised bottles that, of course, incentivised them to share (or show off) on social media.