This article was published on June 13, 2011

Did Coca-Cola just create an ad campaign for Facebook?


Did Coca-Cola just create an ad campaign for Facebook?

Coca-Cola Egypt’s latest ad campaign, ‘Press Like,’ keys into one of Facebook’s main features, the Like button. The ad, which has of course found its way onto YouTube, although not through Coca-Cola’s official page, is mostly in Arabic, but there are a few English snippets in there as well which will give you a general sense of what the ad is all about.

With a series of interviews, Coca-Cola is focusing on the positive effects when someone ‘likes’ your posts on Facebook. There is talk of endorphins, validation and reward systems, talk of emotions and feelings, optimism and even the positive effect of a Facebook like on your blood circulation and sleeping patterns. The ad ends with the slogan, ‘What will you like today?’

The funny thing is the ad comes across more as an ad for Facebook than for Coca-Cola. It actually would have been a much better concept for Facebook than the one they came up with themselves.

As you’re watching it, you pretty much forget all about Coca-Cola, and instead are more likely to focus on the number of likes you’ve received on Facebook. The link between Coca-Cola and the Like button is seen in one sentence in the ad, “As a brand, for 125 years we’ve been talking about joy, happiness and positivity. Now all of these things have a button.”

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If you want to find out how many likes you’ve received on Facebook, Coca-Cola draws you back into the fold with their Like-O-Meter – a Facebook app which is supposed to tell you how many likes you’ve received on your Facebook posts. The only problem is they don’t tell you where to find it. We managed to find this Like-O-Meter, which has probably received a flood of new users from Egypt, despite the fact that it has nothing to do with Coca-Cola. The two Boston-based developers, Tobias Hathorn and Matt Campbell, behind the app are probably wondering where the sudden flood of Egyptian traffic came from.

Their Like-O-Meter not only tells you how many likes you’ve received, it will also show you where you stand on the leaderboard with your friends – that is if your friends have granted the app access to their profiles as well. And then you’ll get to see how you stack up against some of the celebrities in the ad, including Asser Yassin, Basma, Yousra El Lozy and Hend Sabry, each of whom tell us how many likes they’ve received.

We’ll be keeping an eye out for the official Coca-Cola Like-O-Meter, and if we do find it, you’ll be the first to know.

If you want to watch the ad, and get a little bit of that feel-good vibe from Coca-Cola and Facebook, check out the Arabic ad below.

Update: Coca-Cola Egypt has launched their official Like-O-Meter and as promised, you can find it here.

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