Project

The Coca-Cola Youth Empowerment project, awarded with the prestigious award

Client

Coca-Cola HBC Serbia and Montenegro

Brief

Coca-Cola Youth Empowerment is part of the global social responsibility initiative of the Coca-Cola Hellenic Group, which was created with the ultimate goal: Empowering a total of one million young people in the communities where the company operates.

Recognising the seriousness of the unemployment problem in the country and the region, the national project integrates various offline and online communication channels with the aim of making available to young people the knowledge and skills that will increase their chances of employment.

In the period before the pandemic, the concept of the program was based on offline workshops that took place in cities across Serbia. In addition, the KPIs in that period were significantly lower, so the program's success was not in doubt - with the help of smart promotion on social networks, the desired target was effectively won.

However, as the implementation conditions changed under the influence of the pandemic, and after it, the annual KPIs of the project increased - it was necessary to establish a new hybrid concept of the educational event that would satisfy the CSR ambitions of the project, but also the set targets at the level of Hellenic Global.

The annual KPI of the project in 2022 was based on 2,000 young people aged 18 to 30 who attended at least 2 hours of educational programs that are key to professional development.

Solution

As a basic solution, we moved the program to the online space during the pandemic for preventive reasons. Through an adequately selected streaming platform, branded and technically adapted for the project’s needs, the entire project acquired a digital character while maintaining the quality of the educational program.

After the end of the pandemic, Coca-Cola’s Youth Empowerment remains primarily in the digital space – for the following reasons:

– The more significant impact of the program on young people,
– The possibility of the presence of a larger number of young people/communities in educational programs without geographical barriers,
– An efficient realisation of project KPIs with the active support of smart promotion.

In the period after the pandemic, we upgraded the solution with a hybrid concept – when offline conferences were also organised through relevant partnerships with youth organisations.

Each conference consisted of expert education in the domain of business or soft skills and a lecture based on an example of good practice, that is a personal story about a young person’s career success. In previous years, lectures were held by experts such as Vesna Kostić, psychologist Dejan Živković, as well as extremely successful young influencers such as Tamara Ćosić, Teodora Miljković and Dario Kesegi.

This improved concept became a winner in 2022 when the Youth Empowerment project won the prestigious Đorđe Weifert national award for socially responsible business!

During 2022, in addition to four online events, the last of which had a regional character and success, three offline educational events were also held. This winning, integral concept continues to be implemented and empowers young people in 2023 as well.

Result

We are proud to achieve the following results. In 2022, the total number of empowered youth in the territory of Serbia and Montenegro was 3,658. The number of mentors (lecturers) on the project, who shared their professional knowledge and experience, is 24. The number of partner organisations with which we implemented offline education together is 6.

The special value of the project, which remains even after the realisation of online and offline educational conferences, is reflected in more than 50 hours of educational video materials of the Coca-Cola Youth Empowerment project, available for free to young people on the online platform.

In 2023, we will continue to follow digital trends to improve the project as loyal partner support to our long-standing client, Coca-Cola HBC Serbia and Montenegro.