Frukt’s Brands & Music Manifesto for 2010 shows Coca-Cola as consistently being the most memorable brand for music-based activity across all age ranges. A massive 67% of those asked (during research contained within the manifesto) said that it remembered some kind of music-related activity to do with the brand. It’s biggest campaign of 2009 was Open Happiness, so has the brand scored so highly because of the combination of on-pack giveaways with free music downloads that featured so prominently throughout?

A central part of this campaign featured the specially commissioned track ‘Yeah, Yeah Yeah, La La La’ by Calvin Harris, which connected the television ads to the single that was released by the artist. Coca-Cola gave away on-pack downloads which allowed visitors to the Coke Zone site to pick any track – including Harris’ – to be downloaded. The site also hosted the Coke Creature organ, which featured in the ad and could be played on site.

As we’ve seen recently from Cadbury and Marmite, is this collaboration of online and offline the key to a memorable campaign? Or is it purely the power of music? According to the results of Frukt’s own research, 80% of everyone asked said that music played an ‘important’ or ‘very important’ role in their engagement with a given advertising campaign, and 72% of respondents said that free ticket giveaways would have a probable or definite impact (which is probably why O2 achieved a huge 58% of people connecting the brand with music, sitting just below Coke).

Music is a powerful and evocative medium, but with almost 75% of 16-24 year olds saying that the Internet has now overtaken radio as the primary channel for finding new music,  brands looking to make the most of both worlds now have an ever more accepting audience. The digital world might be an engaging space in which to talk to consumers, but it’s important to remember that offline activity can always drive traffic to a more complex and measurable space online with the right soundtrack.