For the better part of 30 years, Coca-Cola and Pepsi have been engaged in what the marketing industry rather grandly calls the cola wars. Billions spent, celebrities recruited and enough advertising awards collected to fill a small warehouse.

And what have we got to show for it? A bottle with somebody’s name on it and Beyoncé holding a Pepsi.

Perhaps it’s time we found ourselves a new rivalry.

This summer Coca-Cola is launching its biggest ever UK marketing campaign. Share a Coke will replace its iconic branding with 150 of Britain’s most popular names, encouraging consumers to find their own, buy one for a friend and share the experience online.

It’s a clever idea. Turning an ordinary product into something personal gives consumers another reason to buy it. The campaign also transforms Coca-Cola’s packaging into a remarkably effective advertising medium.

But let’s not get carried away. Coca-Cola Hasn’t Invented Personalisation

In 2011, Heinz launched its Get Well Soup campaign, allowing consumers to send personalised cans of soup to sick friends and relatives. Heinz understood that people weren’t simply buying soup. They were buying a thoughtful gesture.

Coca-Cola is applying much the same principle, albeit with a substantially larger marketing budget. The difference is that Heinz gave people a reason to buy something for somebody else. Coca-Cola has given them a reason to rummage through supermarket fridges looking for their own name.

Both are good campaigns. Neither is a revolution.

Meanwhile, Pepsi has signed another multimillion-dollar celebrity endorsement deal, this time with Beyoncé.

Michael Jackson did it. The Spice Girls did it. Now Beyoncé is doing it.

For a brand that prides itself on representing the next generation, there is something rather amusing about using essentially the same strategy it employed when that generation’s parents were teenagers.

That’s not to say it won’t work. Marketers have an unfortunate habit of confusing originality with effectiveness.

But for two companies whose rivalry has helped define modern advertising, the latest instalment feels remarkably familiar.

While Coca-Cola and Pepsi continue competing for attention, a rather more interesting contest is developing elsewhere.

Google, Facebook and Amazon are building businesses around something potentially more valuable than soft drinks: access to consumers.

Google knows what people search for. Facebook knows what interests them. Amazon knows what they buy.

Each has a different understanding of consumer behaviour, and each is finding ways to turn that information into advertising revenue.

For decades, advertisers have paid media owners to reach broad audiences, relying on research and demographics to estimate who might see their message.

Digital platforms are beginning to offer something different. The ability to reach particular consumers, understand their behaviour and measure what happens afterwards.

The technology is far from perfect, but the commercial opportunity is enormous.

The next great advertising rivalry may not be between the brands buying advertising, but between the companies controlling access to the audience.

And that could have consequences well beyond the advertising industry.

As consumers increasingly discover, research and purchase products online, the platforms facilitating those interactions could become extraordinarily influential.

Brands may find themselves paying not only to build awareness, but also to reach customers who are already looking for them.

Advertising agencies, meanwhile, may need to reconsider their role as technology makes the mechanics of buying and delivering advertising increasingly accessible.

Exactly how this develops remains to be seen. But the balance of power between brands, media owners and consumers looks set to change. The Cola Wars Are Becoming a Sideshow

Share a Coke is a good campaign. Pepsi’s Beyoncé partnership will probably be effective too. But neither represents the most interesting development in advertising. While the soft drink giants compete over who can produce the more memorable campaign, technology companies are positioning themselves to influence how advertising is bought, sold and measured.

The cola wars were fought over which company could sell more fizzy brown liquid. The next advertising war could be fought over who gets paid whenever somebody tries to sell anything.

Suddenly, putting your name on a bottle doesn’t seem quite so revolutionary.