Surely one of the most successful marketing decisions of 2011 has been the “Share a Coke” advertising campaign?

Coca-Cola Amatil, who manufacture Coca-Cola in Australia, have pioneered a campaign where the 150 most popular Australian names have been randomly printed on bottles and cans of the beverage. This has been a stroke of marketing brilliance as people have searched for ‘their’ bottle including those who don’t even drink Coca-Cola.

Last week, whilst in company I discovered my own name printed on a bottle that was sitting at the front of a drinks cabinet at a local bakery.

Of course I was inclined to buy the bottle and I don’t even like Coca-Cola.

In all honesty I don’t know why I bought it, especially because I consider myself to be quite resistant to “marketing ploys”. Regardless, I can’t argue that the novelty value is there, even if I gave the beverage away.

The “Share a Coke” campaign was the work of Ogilvy & Mather and commenced in September 2011 with the 150 most-popular Australian names. Following the launch of the campaign it is believed that Coca-Cola have experienced a substantial increase in sales as well as invaluable social media and news exposure.

For those folk with less-conventional names or nicknames, Coca-Cola visited shopping centres where people could queue and get a custom name such as Udaya, Khuntoria, Chibi or Skyro printed on their can of Coke.

The campaign was so successful that in November Coca-Cola announced that a ballot would be held to add another 50 names to the mix in 2012. That ballot has now been completed and the names announced.

Following the success of the campaign in Australia, Share a Coke will be expanded internationally in 2012.