Corner Store is an international convenience store brand, with locations across the US and Canada. The brand is known for its high-quality stores and offerings, a welcome break from your average gas station. In 2015, Corner Store, in partnership with Coca Cola, began rolling out Coca Cola’s popular Freestyle beverage customization machines in its stores. The first market to receive the soda fountains was Corner Store’s home city of San Antonio, TX.
Taking a familiar brand and making it new was certainly a challenge for Corner Store. What’s more established than Coca Cola? Working with both brands, RMH sought to focus on the customization angle, allowing the customer to dream up any flavor possible, and recognize that Corner Store had the ability to make their dreams a reality. Through a number of creative pitches, a strategy was created.
RMH would create a multimedia campaign for the Freestyle launch in the San Antonio area. Starting from a core creative idea, concepts would be created for television, radio, digital media, billboards, and print. Since the Coca-Cola brand is already familiar to the public, RMH brought fresh, provocative copy to the campaign, positioning Corner Store as a fun, young brand.
The RMH team worked diligently to create a campaign that brought the creativity and freshness of Coca-Cola Freestyle to life. Using swirling, twirling carbonation bubbles to tell the story, drink combinations floated across the page and screen, answering the wry question of “What the Freestyle is that?” The creative was strong, with recognizable branding elements from both Corner Store and Coca-Cola floating alongside the colorful bubbles in the world of Freestyle.
The animated commercial aired on all four major networks in primetime in the San Antonio area. The audio version could be heard across the top 5 radio stations in the market, as well as on local-listeners’ Pandora stations. Billboards were also put up across the city, and print versions were on display in each participating Corner Store location.
The rollout was a massive hit in San Antonio, a great success for Corner Store, Coca-Cola, and RMH! The edgy and fun creative brought younger consumers into the stores in droves. Paired with the success of Corner Store’s Halfy-Hour, half-priced drink campaign (another RMH initiative), soft drinks were flying off the shelves.
The campaign ran for months, following the initial three week schedule planned for the rollout. The success of Freestyle continued to build throughout the first half of 2015, and Corner Store plans to continue to bring the Coca-Cola Freestyle experience to new markets around the US and Canada in the years to come.