A GRIMSBY-area business has played a key role in one of the coolest proposals of the year.
Richard Askam's Intervino fulfills the personalised bottle naming requests that are received by Coca-Cola, through the campaign website, as previously reported.
So when Scottish customer Donnie McGilvray used the service to produce 'Beautiful Eloise, Will You Marry Me', as a special six-pack greeting for his girlfriend when she opened the fridge, it was the work done by the 40-strong team at the dedicated production facility near Louth that had made it possible.
Days later, when a delighted Donnie posted it on the Coca-Cola Facebook page, the gesture went viral, attracting more than 1.4 million hits.
Seeing the rapid spread, the Intervino chief executive was quick to get in touch, sending one of the company's staple products – a personalised bottle of bubbly – north, while helping him deal with growing media interest.
Mr Askam, who won the contract with the soft drinks giant earlier this year, exactly 15 years on from loading up surplus stock of Coca-Cola as he moved from community off licences in Grimsby to the wholesale and gifting supply business, said: "I messaged the groom on Facebook as he was being inundated with press requests and I basically wanted to calm him down. It was the biggest viral part of the whole pan-European campaign, with 1.4 million likes in the end – and then I sent him a bottle of personalised champagne as a congratulations, and I am going to the wedding!"
Donnie decided on the novel approach, aware of his girlfriend's difficulties in finding personalised products with Eloise on. Having checked all the deliveries to the supermarket he works at, he turned to the web and mycoca-cola.com
"I knew she would love it if I proposed to her with something with her name on it," he said.
Once the bottles arrived, he hid them in the garage, bought an engagement ring, then set up the surprise in the fridge, managing to get Eloise to put the milk away he had 'conveniently' left out.
Silence, a huge scream and finally the all-important 'yes' when Donnie retrieved the glass and proposed, clinched it, and it quickly became an internet sensation.
"We we were so happy and thought it would be fun to share the news with Coca-Cola," said Donnie. "We were shocked when it took off the way it did. We can't believe that it has caught so many people's imaginations."
Coca-Cola created a personalised image for the pair, with Mr Askam's intervention.
"We were amazed when Coca-Cola posted a congratulatory photo and when the chief executive of Intervino reached out to us. This made our engagement feel even more special. We are still stunned by the response!"
The personalised glass bottles have been stored away as keepsakes, and that the wedding is planned for summer 2016.
More Share A Coke products and a romantic dinner was also laid on by Coca-Cola, which will delight fans in Grimsby when the famous festively-decorated lorry arrives at the Riverhead on Thursday, between 1pm and 9pm.
