A couple of snippets from a larger story in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
Coke will debut a host of commercials on New Year’s Eve. Instead of a traditional tagline, each spot ends with a red-and-white graphic image of a Coke bottle, along with the sound of a soft drink being opened and poured. The spots all have a humorous element but nothing too edgy. The company, as it tries to revive sales of its core soft drink, needs to draw in young consumers, without tainting the tradition of the brand.
Several of the Coke Classic commercials are vignettes set to music. In one, there’s a guy eating at an old-fashioned lunch counter. He sadly realizes his Coke glass is empty. He looks longingly at a man down the counter, who is taking a long sip. A pretty waitress in a pink uniform fills the first guy’s glass. The words flash on the screen: “Free refills. It should be a law.”
Coke Zero is also getting new commercials that play on the “zero” in the name. Coke Zero, a diet drink designed to taste more like regular Coke than Diet Coke , was launched in June. The first Coke Zero commercial was a remake of the famous 1971 “I’d like to teach the world to sing” spot. The remake featured G. Love and a bunch of young hipsters on a rooftop in Philadelphia singing “I’d like to teach the world to chill.” The commercials were widely criticized for not communicating what Coke Zero actually is.
More recent commercials focus on a straightforward zero-calorie message. Those will continue to air, and the company is adding spots with humor. In one of the new commercials, there is a car wreck. The drivers start yelling at each other. A bystander points out the traffic light is broken, so both drivers saw a green light, leading to the wreck. The drivers apologize and shake hands. The hook is that instead of real dialogue, the actors are counting down from 20. The only way to guess at what they are actually saying is their actions and the tone of their voices.
When the conflict is resolved, they get to zero.
If you’re looking to get attention, isn’t it kind of a bad idea to slip this story into the news on a Friday right before Christmas?
