AdSnacking: The Coca-Cola Corporation Makes You Feel Warm And Fuzzy
I'll admit it here in the realm of the never deletable Internet: I've gotten very verklempt watching TV commercials. A recent P&G Olympics commercial that celebrated Olympians' moms totally ruined me. I mean, totally embarrassing full-on tears streaming down my face. Advertising is about stickiness. The goal is to get a message and a product firmly lodged in your brain. TV commercials are at times a brilliant delivery of message to a viewer. You may find TV commercials revolting, worthless or intrusive, but for their sheer power of manipulating emotions (and creating stickiness) in 30 to 90 seconds, I will never cease to be fascinated by what that message can instill and elicit.
This week's ad shows people engaging in acts of love, bravery, friendship and kindness — general good deeds. Similarly to when I watched Mr. Holland's Opus, I was really glad I saw this ad in the comfort of my own bedroom with the door closed to muffle the sounds of my embarrassing sniffles.
Product: A+
Drinking Coke Will Result in World Peace
When it comes to a company like Coca-Cola, their ads aren't even directly selling you a can of Coke. This ad sells the idea that Coke should be a major part of life's moments, great and small. This "CCTV" ad is a celebration of the world's unseen and overlooked moments of human generosity, kindness, joy and heroics. Real life moments from all around the world, curated and packaged with a familiar soundtrack. Ahhhh. Just like Coke, it goes down awful nice and is mighty refreshing. And yes, in the final CCTV clip we see a friend buying a friend a Coke. A world of good deeds where (hopefully) everyone is drinking Coke.
Message: A
If Everyone Drank Coke There Would be No US Economic Crisis
Now there are some of you out there saying, "It's just a sappy commercial," and others of you will want to argue about the evil multinational manipulating me into buying its environmentally detrimental product. (And I'd gladly discuss both of these points with you in the comments section.)
It would be fair to say based on no evidence or research by me that Coca-Cola is extremely high up on people's mainstream "hate list" of major corporations (surpassed only by McDonald's as the #1 hated corporation). But what is being overlooked is that Coca-Cola employs 146,000 people worldwide. So perhaps think about all the people that create, test, package, ship, market, deliver and stock Coke. Their jobs (and families) rest on us buying Coke every day. I once saw this movie with Helen Hunt called Pay it Forward. I have no idea if that really makes sense here, but I'm putting it out there that buying Coke will save America.
Creativity: A+
Coke is Responsible for All Worldwide Acts of Random Kindness
Here is the beauty of advertising – Coke is convincing you to buy into a product and incorporate it into your life. Coke did this by using existing free footage of people being kind and generous in moments that have nothing to do with drinking Coca-Cola and for which Coke deserves no real credit. Coke has taken some of the world's finest unseen moments and broadcast them out, so that you can share in these little slivers of mensch-ness with Coke hoping that you'll still be feeling good when you pass by the next vending machine. Sincere? Possibly. Manipulative? Definitely. Sticky? Absolutely.
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