Hey Hasbro, Take a Listen

March 16, 2009 in Branding, Facebook
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Really interesting story in AdAge about the creation and growth of the Coca-Cola Page on Facebook. Behind Barack Obama, Coke has the most popular page on Facebook.

With Coke’s global footprint, sliding into the 2nd spot sounds about right—there’s no reason that they shouldn’t be in the top 10. The interesting part of the story isn’t their ranking though, or even that the page was created by a pair of fans that stepped up and made it themselves. No, with companies either falling all over themselves, or doing absolutely nothing in today’s more social media for fear of doing the wrong thing, the unique part is Coke actually reaching out to the two creators.

“Everyone has this vision that if something like this happens, the big company will send you off to Guantanamo,” he said. “This was exactly the opposite.”

Coke instead flew the guys down to Atlanta for a few days of meetings, a tour of the World of Coke museum and a visit to the company’s legendary archives. It was a friendly, not heavy-handed approach, Mr. Jedrzejewski said.

“We talked openly about ideas, the future of the fan page,” he said.

(more)

Despite Hasbro always acting on the right side of the law, and continuing to make the Facebook app more robust, Scrabble will never be as beloved as Scrabulous was. There will always be a negative stigma attached to the game because the IP ordeal played out so very publicly.

It’s refreshing (heh) to see Coke approaching fans with a syrupy sweet (ha!), inclusive mindset, knowing that the bubbly (zing!) authenticity of actual, sincere fans is the most valuable online currency.

And oh yeah: High Fructose Corn Syrup. I couldn’t find a way to work that one in.

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