Coca Cola: Another Advertising Hit

When you think of coca gage what derives to your mind? It wouldnt be surprising if you thought first of hundred ads. In the business relationship of announce perhaps no other(a) friendship has had such a strong and continuous trespass on society through advertising. non single generate vitamin Cs ads been successful at interchange its soft drinks, but decade aft(prenominal) decade coca plant dopes ads and campaigns have influenced our really culture by making their expressive style into the hearts and minds of the consumers. A Brief Ad Hi legend In the mid-twenties coca sens shifted its advertising strategy, focusing for the first time on creating sword loyalty.It began advertising the soft drink as fun and refreshing. cytosines 1929 campaign slogan was The Pa put on that Refreshes. To this day, that slogan remains issuance two on Advertising Ages spinning forbiddengo snow slogans of altogether the time. How somewhat those noteworthy coca Cola Santa Cl ause crisscross ads? Most pack believably have seen an example of such. What just about people dont realize is that our modern-day vision of Santa as a jolly old man with a white beard in a red suit and hat is to some extent a resultant of those setback ads that began emerging in popular magazines in 1931.Before that, the mankinds image of Santa was fragmented, with physical portrayals of the legendary holiday visitor ranging from a pixie to a leprechaun to even a frightening gnome. But Coca Colas long-running series of ads solidified what was becoming a greens U. S. image, making our beloved Santa Clause recognizable around the world. Those Coca Cola campaigns were probably a little before your time. but what about Coca Colas 1971 Hilltop campaign. Perhaps you remember its lyrics, Id uniform to teach the world to sing, in perfect harmony.Id like to buy the world a nose candy, and keept it company. The song was sung by a choir of young people from all over the world, perc hed high on a hilltop, each holding an iconic hourglass-shaped bottle of light speed. Within months, Coca Cola and its bottlers received more than a hundred thousand letter about the ad. The ad actually received requests at radio place so many in fact, that a version of the song was released as a pop-music single. The resounds tagline, Its the real thing, served as the keister for Coke ads for years. Still too long ago for you?Maybe you have heard of Cokes ad showing a bruised and battered Mean Joe Green tossing his shirt to a young fan later on the boy sh ars his Coke with the pro football player. The ad appears consistently at the top of Best Super bowlful Ads lists. Or how about Coke is it? Cant beat the feeling? certainly you would remember the jingle made famous in the 1990s, Always Coca Cola. And who doesnt make some associate surrounded by the sweet, dark, bubbly b foreverage and frigid bear? Innovative animation technology put those lovable creatures in only a h andful of ads, but they are forever inscribed in the memories of consumers every(prenominal)w here.These are only some highlights of Coca Colas long advertising history, stretching back to the companys opening in 1886. With so many hits and such a huge impact on consumers, its hard to imagine that the beverage giant ever gets into an advertising rut. But as the new millennium began to unfold, many considered that Coke had lost its advertising sizzle. The company was struggling to create ads that resonated with younger family while at the very(prenominal) time appealing to older consumers. And the companys ads were routinely out-pointed by those of rival Pepsi. Coca Cola indispensable some new advertising fizz.Back to the Bowl Where does a company roll when it wants to make a big ad splash? For Coca Cola, its thoughts turned to the marquee of all advertising events the Super Bowl. The company had certainly had success with the ad venue before. But scoring big with a Super Bowl ad isnt guaranteed. In fact, many cynics watch over the ad venue as a waste of mvirtuosoy. One group of researchers found that average brand recall one week after the 2008 Super Bowl was an unimpressive 7%. Recall for specific commercials and the brand represented therein was even worse at only 4%.That doesnt speak very highly for a 30 foster ad that costs $ 2. 7 billion to air. And perhaps even more to produce. The Super Bowl has its share of critics who think it is far too dearly-won for a single event, regardless of how many people tune-in. But for all the misses, there have been plenty of hits. In 1999, Hotjobs. com blew half of its $ 4 million advertising budget for the year on a single 30-second spot. The result? Traffic on its web site immediately shot up 120%, choking its network and server system. Monster. com saw similar results that same year.And hundreds of advertisers throughout the Super Bowls history have been very satisfied with the results of their ads. For i ts 2008 campaign debut, Coca Cola was confident that the Super Bowl was just right for its broad target market. It assigned Wieden + Kennedy the task of crafting a 60-second commercial. Hal Curtis, one of the top creative directors for the agency, took charge of the project. Two years before, Mr. Curtis had come up with an idea for an ad while working on a different campaign. He thought the idea was perfect for Coke. By now, youve probably seen the ad.Titled Its mine, the spot is set at Macys boon Day Parade in New York City, a parade famous for its blimp- surfaced balloons marched through the Central Park area on long tethers. The Coke ad focuses on two particular characters, Stewie Griffin from Fox networks comedy television show Family Guy and the classic study character Under frankfurter. Both balloons sidle up to a huge Coke balloon. The two characters begin fighting over the coke, bouncing around in a kind of slow-motion ballet against the New York skyline, bumping up agains t buildings.As the scuffle progresses in a higher place the streets, moving higher and higher, New Yorkers look on from hot dog stands, cabs, and even inside buildings. At the storys climactic moment, a giant balloon depicting the cartoon character Charlie cook emerges from nowhere, swooping and claiming a giant Coke, leaving Stewie and Underdog empty-handed. The spot cost Coca Cola $ 2. 3 million to make and more than double that to air. It was also the around strong ad that Mr. Curtis had ever produced. For starters, he encountered mounds of red tape in negotiating the rights to use the well-known cartoon characters in the ad.Choreographic and shooting footages of giant balloons in one of the worlds biggest cities brought its own set of challenges. At one point, disobedient weather forced the project indoors and all the way across the country to the Paramount Studios on the West Coast. The post-shoot animation was considered yet a third shoot for the ad. It all added up to f our months of production and postproduction. When asked about the challenge of simultaneously reaching consumers of all ages with an advertisement, Mr. Curtis responded, A good story appeals to everyone.And a story that is well told appeals to young and old. Certainly, there are multiplication where we want to skew a message younger, but for this spot that wasnt part of thinking. Pio Schunker, Coca Colas head of creative excellence, added, We are at our best when we speak to universal values that appeal to everyone quite than try and skew it to specific segments. According to Mr. Schunker, the universal value referred to here was that Good really wins in the end, a point that he thought was made strongly with the contrast of Charlie Brown over a character like Stewie.In fact, Curtis originally pitched the ad with an ending that had the Coke bottle getting punctured on a flagpole and neither balloon getting it. But Coca Cola wanted something that was emotionally more positive, som ething that expressed optimism. I felt it was such a downer of an ending to have these characters chase the Coke and not get it, declared Mr. Schunker. It was Curtiss 12 year old son, Will, who gave him the idea for what became the ending when he said, Why cant another balloon get it? For Hal Curtis, the undermentioned logical step was Charlie Brown.Everyone was happy with the end result. Both Coca Cola and Wieden + Kennedy felt that the ad communicated the desired message perfectly while pitch out the kind of warm emotions that had emanated from Coca Cola ads for decades. The hunches of these ad veterans prove correct. The day after the game, Cokes balloon ad had 350 communicate posts, while Pepsis ads had only 250. A week after that, the Its tap ad was the most talked about ad online. SuperBowl-Ads. com had it rated as the top ad of the dozens that aired on the 2008 gridiron matchup.And later in the year, the spot won a Silver Lion at the Cannes Lions festival, the most pres tigious award event in the industry. There is no uncertainty that the Its Mine ad achieved more buzz and more size than Coca Colas ads in recent history. But thats only a first step to advertising success. In the end, the only result that really matters is whether or not the ad has the intended upshot on consumers. Although the impact of Coca Colas its Mine ad or its history of other outstanding ads on actual beverage sales may never be known, one broader shutdown is clear.Every year, Interbrand publishes the premier ranking of global brands based on monetary value. And every year since Interbrand began publishing the list in 2001, Coca Cola has held the top spot. At $ 65 billion, Coca Cola is the worlds most valuable brand. Thus, its pretty easy to make the connection between Coca Colas brand value and more than deoxycytidine monophosphate years of stellar advertising. Questions for Discussions 1. Consider Coca Colas advertising throughout its history. Identify as many commonal ities as possible for its miscellaneous ads and campaigns. (For a list of Coca Cola slogans over the years, check out http//en. ikipedia. org/wiki/Coca-Cola_slogans) 2. Analyze the Its Mine ad based on the function of creating an advertising message. 3. Discuss issues of selecting advertising media for the Its Mine ad. How powerfulness this growth differ from that of other Coca Colas campaigns? From another campaigns for other companies? 4. Based on the information given in this case, how might Coca Cola measure the effectiveness of the Its Mine ad? What else might Coca Cola want to measure? &8212&8212&8212&8212&8212&8212&8212 Coca Cola other Advertising Hit Famous cartoon Underdog Stewie Griffin from Family Guy Charlie Brown