How A Gorilla Marketing Campaign Generated The First Town In The World Where An Energy Drink Outsold Coca Cola

 Business Studies and advanced marketing
How A Gorilla Marketing Campaign Generated The First Town In The World Where
An Energy Drink Outsold Coca Cola
Name
Institution
We all know how popular Coca Cola is. In many cities, Coca Cola is the biggest
selling soft drink. There are plenty of examples where some soft drinks outsell
Coca Cola in towns and cities around the world, but my case study revolves
around the first energy drink to outsell Coca Cola in a city or town. The city in
question is Auckland in New Zealand, and the energy drink is called V Power.
Essay Body
Coca Cola is the world’s biggest selling soft drink with over 1.8 billions served
every day. That is more than the amount of people who use Google, Facebook,
Bing, and YouTube combined in just one day. (BBC, 2017). It is no wonder that
Coca Cola is the biggest seller in most cities, but in 2009, the biggest selling soft
drink in Auckland, New Zealand was V Energy drink.
The marketing team was able to dramatically increase sales through gorilla
marketing. They started by contacting the local council members in Auckland to
ask them permission to run a few gorilla and viral campaigns in the city. The idea
was that the campaign would increase awareness of the new V Energy drink, and
that it would create positive buzz about Auckland and even get it in the national
press. The local council members agreed to go along with the process and to keep
the V Energy drink’s secret. The authorities were informed that certain elements
of the energy drink’s campaign were pre-approved and were not breaking the law.
(Coloribus, 2009). With that agreement in place, the marketers started phase one,
which was the random placing of branded traffic cones around the city. Over the
course of six months, traffic cones started to appear in random locations and each
traffic cone had the V Energy brand printed on it without fully explaining what V
Energy actually was or what it stood for. According to the book “Communication in
marketing,” that is what first peaked people’s interest. (Chitty, Barker &Valos,
2011).