How Coca-Cola helped feed families in need in Italy with Amazon Ads' help

The Coca-Cola brand has traditionally been associated with the magic of Christmas. 

In Italy, Coca-Cola has a historic partnership with Banco Alimentare, a non-profit food bank. The brand is one of the main partners of the leading NGO’s annual Christmas fundraiser, which raises funds for meals for people in need across Italy.

In the past, Coca-Cola hosted in-person Christmas market activations in cities like Roma, Milano, Verona, Napoli, and Palermo, selling special Coca-Cola branded gifts to support Banco Alimentare. However, many Italian shoppers living outside of these five cities were unable to visit the Christmas markets in past years, limiting the brand’s reach. In addition, the pandemic added another challenge by limiting travel for Italians, and increasing difficulties for them to see family and friends during the holidays. 

Therefore, in 2020, Coca-Cola decided to integrate their traditional in-person Christmas markets into a digital Christmas market on Amazon.it, making it accessible to more Italian families across the country. The brand created limited edition Coca-Cola Christmas gift boxes, which were sold exclusively on Amazon.it. With each box customers purchased, Coca-Cola donated funds for a meal to Banco Alimentare.

The brand used advertising solutions such as homepage takeovers of Amazon.it and Sponsored Brands to raise awareness for their digital Christmas market and drive traffic to their custom landing page. The Coca-Cola team leveraged Amazon DSP, display ads, and video ads to extend their reach with audiences. And they worked with the Amazon Ads team, using insights to help them engage with relevant audiences.

The campaign was popular with shoppers and exceeded Amazon Ads and Coca-Cola’s expectations. Within three days of launching the digital Christmas market campaign, 1,500 special edition Coca-Cola boxes were sold– going out of stock.¹ The success of the campaign funded 150,000 meals for Banco Alimentare in 2020.²