How to boot engagement and improve campaign performance?
The Challenge
Reconnect Coca-Cola with its audience through emotion, using smell as the sense most closely tied to memory. The idea was to move beyond the typical taste-driven approach and invite people to explore their memories with Coca-Cola through the scents that shaped them.
The Strategy
I built a multi-platform content campaign around emotional segmantation, leveraging emotional storytelling to reconnect audiences with their unique Coca-Cola memories.
Audience Insight
We segmented audiences into emotional archetypes: families, couples, solo dwellers, and memory-seekers. Each had a scent, a memory, a Coca-Cola moment.
Channel Integration
A full inbound content system: blog (awareness), infographic (education), social (engagement), email (retention).
Emotional Hook
Used the sense of smell as a psychological trigger for nostalgic recall, anchoring brand moments in personal history.
Conversion Journey
Structured the campaign around the funnel: Attract (UGC), Engage (stories), Delight (personal ritual with Coca-Cola).
Execution
We designed a full funnel inbound strategy using the Attract → Engage → Delight structure:
Cornerstone Blog Post
Storytelling built around five persona types
Narrative focus: memories linked to scent and Coca-Cola moments
SEO-optimized and emotionally resonant
Infographic
Visual breakdown of “smell + memory” psychology
Connected common scents (e.g., abuela’s cooking, popcorn at movies) to Coca-Cola experiences
Social Media
On Instagram and TikTok, I didn’t just post (we invited the audience in).
I launched a storytelling carousel on Instagram prompting users to reflect: “What scent reminds you of Coca-Cola?”
On TikTok, I turned it into a UGC wave, asking people to share their Coca-Cola scent memory using our branded hashtag.
It was emotional, playful, and raw. The objective wasn’t to chase virality but to trigger it.
Email Newsletter
The email was designed to be like a letter where the subject line was a gentle: “What does your life smell like?”
The body led the reader into the blog, it was framed as a reflection, short but evocative to feel more like an editorial than a promotion.
The objective was to earn the customer’s attention through memory.
Results (simulated but data-backed)
+67%
Engagement on Instagram posts
3x
UGC participation using the campaign hashtag
75%
emotional recall in user surveys
18%
Email open rate was above benchmark