Coke Super Bowl Blunder

Coke came out with a digital marketing campaign for the 2013 Super Bowl. Coke is known for their iconic marketing campaigns, like the famous polar bear during the holiday season and the iconic slogan "Open happiness." For the Super Bowl, Coke produced a commercial showing an Arabic man with a camel in the dessert and he sees a mirage of coke. Then you see a race occurring between a van of Vegas Show Girls, Mad Max Bikes, and Cowboys. Viewers could go vote online to choose who they want to win the race. The idea seems simple and easy. However, execution is where Coke failed. The site where viewers could vote was acting up and was continuously inactive. Coke was hoping to show a commercial during the Super Bowl to show off the winner but due to the failure of the voting website, Coke was not able to decide who won the race.
To be honest, I think the idea of the campaign is random and I am not sure how a race between Vegas showgirls, bikers, and cowboys relate to Coke. The campaign did stir up conversation but the conversation doesn't seem relevant. Personally, the whole idea just seems silly. After I saw the commercial, couple days prior to the Super Bowl, I did not feel any inclination to vote for a winner of the race. Good thing I didn't go vote because even if I wanted to, the website wasn't working. I believe this Super Bowl campaign for Coke was a fail from beginning to end. Viewers of the Super Bowl are not going to remember Coke's commercial. If they do remember the commercial, it'll be due to its website malfunctions. You would think after spending millions of dollars on a marketing campaign for the biggest sporting event of the year that they would make sure a website is working. Alas, it was not and ultimately lead to a relatively unsuccessful campaign for Coke. Hopefully, next time Coke will be extra cautious that all aspects of their digital campaign is functioning correctly for next year's Super Bowl.