In October, Coca-Cola introduced a new Facebook app aimed at marketing their Coke Zero product. The app, called Coke Zero Facial Profiler, uses facial profiling software to analyze your face and help you find people on Facebook who resemble you. Basically, it’s like one of those “which celebrity do you look like?” apps, except that the matches are ordinary people, not celebs.
The application takes full advantage of Facebook’s ability to distribute content virally, enabling users to share their “matches” via Facebook, Twitter or by posting a link on their website or blog. Of course, you can also invite your friends to play, too.
When the application was launched, Coke Zero didn’t have enough pictures on file to match anybody, so users had to wait until December to see who their Facebook doppelgangers are. This seems to have frustrated some early users of the app, at least if the comments on this Mashable article are any indication.
Even now, the application leaves something to be desired when it comes to accuracy. I tried it out and got a match that looks nothing like me, while the reporter who wrote this New York Times article found that “the matches didn’t look like doppelgangers — they seemed to be based on the position of the face in the photo, and things like the shape of lips, chin and eyes. “
Of course, the real question is, as always, “Is it working?” Is the Facebook app helping Coke Zero get its message out? So, far, according to the New York Times, the data has been encouraging but inconclusive:
More than 288,000 people have installed the application, and the average time spent on cokezero.com (Coca-Cola does not have access to time spent on the Facebook version) for the week of Dec. 7, the most recent week available, was more than five and a half minutes. That time is “comparatively high relative to other programs,” Ms. Cronin said.
Unfortunately, the average rating that Facebook users gave the app was 2.1 out of 5 stars. That seems to indicate that a significant number of users didn’t feel like that average five and a half minutes was time well-spent.
In the New York Times, Linda Cronin, director of media and interactive communications for Coca-Cola, said that she felt the campaign has been a success so far: “Internally, we call it a worldwide social experiment to see how this is doing, what does it do for our brand-health measures. We feel like it’s creating the buzz that we want.”
The facial profiling idea is neat, but it takes more than just a cool concept to create a successful social media campaign. Ideally, you want to create something of value that your fans will want to share with others. When I tested it, the app seemed buggy and slow, and when I went to the official Coke Zero Facial Profiler page, I found others echoing my complaints. It seems like less-than-optimal user experience may be a bit of an obstacle for Coke Zero’s new app.
