Inside Coke Studio’s 2025 evolution into a vibrant hub

The Brief: Stay Relevant, Show Up Bigger, Mean More.

Gen Z and Millennials demand more than brand presence; they want purpose, participation, and cultural fluency. For Coca-Cola Zero Sugar (CCZS), 2025 was a pivotal year to prove Coke Studio was more than just noise in a crowded field.

Objectives:

• Deepen brand equity with under-35 audiences
• Drive engagement and trial of CCZS at scale
• Cement Coke Studio as an owned cultural IP
• Deliver measurable sustainability and inclusion outcomes

The Strategy: A Platform That Performs:

Coke Studio is no longer built as a campaign; it’s engineered as a brand ecosystem. Our strategy was grounded in three pillars, adapted annually to meet audience and cultural trends.

Music:

A curated lineup of 27 artists, DJs, and creators represented emerging scenes, subcultures, and communities often overlooked by mainstream stages. This wasn’t about star power. It was about shared power.

Creativity:

In 2023, we expanded our creative footprint with DesignOpp, collaborating with artists of colour to reimagine the iconic Coke bottle as 3m-high public art, a striking fusion of product, design, and cultural storytelling.

A key evolution in 2024: the introduction of the Coke Studio Podcast Stage, a festival-first live format that brought real fans on stage with real creators (Charleen & Ellie) for live agony-aunt sessions. This isn’t content to consume. It’s content to co-create.

A Better World; Coke Studio’s sustainability framework now mirrors a fully scaled IP:

• 90% of the build is reused from previous editions
• Uniforms made from 100% recycled cotton
• Sampling systems fully closed-loop
• Donations tied to the recycling of sample cans
• ISO-certified tracking of environmental impact

This is not greenwashing. It’s green engineering.

The Experience: Designed to Be Shared, Not Just Seen

From the outside, Coke Studio was a vibrant hub. From the inside, it was a world. Designed for loitering, co-creating, socialising, dancing, snacking, and shouting out your best mate on a live podcast.

The experience included:

• Modular 20x20m structure with shaded viewing zones and open corners
• Daily live podcast recordings with guest creators and real-time fan participation
• Music programming aligned to each day’s festival genre split (urban/dance/pop)
• Selfie stations, creator meet-ups, and “Only Coke Can Do” surprise moments
• 90,871 cold cans sampled, a 46% YoY uplift
• Daily giveaways tied to Coca-Cola app downloads

Social creators weren’t bolted on; they were embedded. 32 influencers created content within the experience, helping drive 2.1M organic reach and keeping Coke Studio in feed long after the gates closed.

“We just wanted to say a massive thank you for all your wonderful work on the Coke Studio activation, as well as all the promotions around it. The area itself looked phenomenal and multiple people commented on how well it looked.”- Rheanna Waters, Live Nation Entertainment

Social & Creator Engagement:

Coke Studio’s cultural relevance extended well beyond the physical footprint. While Verve’s on-site experience was the centrepiece, Edelman’s broader Summer of Music campaign helped amplify reach across social media.

• 6M+ total potential reach, with 355 unpaid social posts
• 87 unpaid influencers attended, more than double the original KPI

Creators like Charleen Murphy and Ellie Kelly went beyond a performance; they brought their followers with them. Live coverage from VIP and GA creators turned the Coke Studio experience into a rolling, real-time social moment.

‘Only Coke Can Do’ Moments:

Not all impact is measurable. One standout moment came from a simple fan email, a request from a festivalgoer undergoing cancer treatment, hoping to create a special experience for their best friend. Quietly, Verve and Coca-Cola made it happen. The pair were welcomed backstage and later wrote:

“It truly meant the world to both me and Chris. We’re still buzzing from it.”

These unscripted, emotional moments help make Coke Studio more than a build; they make it meaningful.

Coke Studio’s strength lies in its repeatability, adaptability, and creative evolution. It’s not an activation that reinvents itself every year; it’s a format that grows, like any good media property.

The platform’s four-year journey shows a clear arc of strategic and creative ambition:

• In 2022, it launched with a DJ-only setup and a simple, exploratory brand presence, Coke’s first step into the festival space, intentionally low-fi to test the waters.
• By 2023, the purpose began to crystallise. Coke Studio became a platform for inclusive curation, showcasing Irish artists of all genders, LGBTQ+ visibility, and a partnership with Gay Times. It also marked the start of its sustainability journey, with recycled cotton uniforms and donations to the Irish Youth Foundation in return for recycled cans.
• In 2024, it addressed a clear daytime engagement gap by introducing the Coke Studio Podcast Stage, a live fan-participation format. The full music lineup moved from DJs to live acts, the merch strategy favoured quality over quantity, and sustainability deepened through decanted sampling and waste reduction.
• By 2025, the platform had matured. 95% of the build was reused, the music budget was tripled to support local Irish talent, and Coke Studio co-created merchandise with festival organisers. Sustainable LED lighting and refined supplier choices further reduced emissions, making the platform both culturally resonant and environmentally accountable.

Coke Studio is now being referenced by Coca-Cola markets globally as a model for experiential IP, sitting at the intersection of music, content, and social purpose.

Results: Business Backed, Culture Led

Commercial Impact:

• Top 3 partner activation across Live Nation’s 2024 Ireland festivals, up from one of many sponsorship activations in 2022
• 1.7pp market share growth for Coca-Cola Zero Sugar (Ireland, Aug YoY), with a 30% uplift in on-site Coca-Cola sales
• 90,871 cans sampled: 28% of total festival attendees, +46% YoY

Cultural Resonance:

• 320,000+ attendees reached across two festivals
• 75%+ brand recall among attendees (up from 61% in 2023)
• 2.1M organic reach across 32 creators
• High engagement from LGBTQ+, Gen Z, and creative community segments

Sustainability Leadership:

• Zero waste to landfill sampling
• 90%+ build reuse
• Scope 3 emissions tracked via ISO tools
• Revenue tied to youth-focused charities

• Sustainability baked into briefing

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