Brands are always striving to stay relevant to their audience by capitalizing on the latest trend or theme. They encourage people to connect with them and generate content which is the best way of gaining brand ambassadors or UGC is a good way of understanding how people perceive their brand.
Looking at the Cola wars, both Pepsi and Coca Cola have been socially active and are quite advanced on their engagement techniques. Recently two videos were released, both engaging audiences via different methods.
Pepsi decided to be relevant by incorporating the Harlem Shake with their brand. The latest dance craze is a great way of engaging with youth, and a fantastic way of pushing the brand on top for awhile. Not too different from when a lot of brands decided to use Psy's Gangnam style for their own advertising. Its catchy and captivating but definitely not a long term strategy.
Coca Cola has been working on its Open Happiness campaign for a while now, and always thinking of new and innovative ways of sharing the happiness. Their latest venture was a crowd sourced video competition for 2012 MOFILM Cannes Lions, where the winning video was by Hugh Mitton. A touching video about how Coca Cola can bring happiness to people, and really captures what the brand is all about. The best thing about it is that is shows how fans perceive the brand, and it's great when its exactly what they have been trying to promote.
So which one is better? Trend hopping vs UGC
