For our Coca-Cola Festive Card site, we created just such a mechanism specific to the Christmas season. It allowed users to decorate their own tree by dragging objects around through Shockwave Flash technology. We gave them a myriad of options, including Coca-Cola ornaments, to put on their tree. They could select an animated background so their tree could sit in a very Christmasy environment or a popular Singaporean scene. We gave several options for music and, of course, they could put in a personalized message.

The Coke Polar Bear makes a brief, animated cameo appearance in each of the backgrounds for kitsch and brand value. When the recipient was alerted via email that their friend sent them an e-greeting, they had the option of easily sending one of their own from the same Web page.

This mechanism proved so popular, we created a non-seasonal ‘Message in a Coca-Cola Bottle’ greeting utility for the rest of the year.