Making Coca-Cola What It is Today, At Home & Abroad: 1990s-Present Day
Slogans from this Era include:
1990 - You Can't Beat the Real Thing
1993 - Always Coca-Cola
2000 - Coca-Cola. Enjoy
2001 - Life Tastes Good
2003 - Coca-Cola... Real
2005 - Make It Real
2006 - The Coke Side of Life
2009 - Open Happiness
2014- Share A Coke
2015- Choose Happiness
1990 - You Can't Beat the Real Thing
1993 - Always Coca-Cola
2000 - Coca-Cola. Enjoy
2001 - Life Tastes Good
2003 - Coca-Cola... Real
2005 - Make It Real
2006 - The Coke Side of Life
2009 - Open Happiness
2014- Share A Coke
2015- Choose Happiness
As this study catches up to present day, Coca-Cola begins to make a shift in it's advertising to match the growing technology trends. Photography equipment gets better and more updated, televisions are becoming more popular and used in homes across the world, and social media starts to become a marketing platform. Coca-Cola works to reach as many possible across all these marketing mediums. During this era, another popular Coke icon is created, and sharing on social media becomes a phenomenon that Coke can get behind. Coca-Cola also begins to take initiatives to focus on promoting specific ideals from consuming it's products, like happiness and friendship. Also, as the world gets more connected across the world, so does Coca-Cola, as it focuses on reaching out to different nations and countries, and promoting diversity in it's advertising.
Coca-Cola was first introduced to the Olympic Games in 1928, and it still remains to be a big partner even today. In 1990, Coke may have supported many countries, but they made sure to promote the United States. The tagline of "refreshing the Olympic Spirit" helps keep up with the idea that Coke is a beverage that can leave you "refreshed" and that by buying and consuming Coke at home in the USA, a consumer could also be helping the Americans in the Olympics. It pulls at the heartstrings of patriotism that can be found in the United States.
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Before Coke took initiative to ban themselves from advertising to children, the use of color and cartoons help sell Coke to children. In 1993, Coke is illustrated here to be a fun drink for kids to have. It was also part of Coke's "Always Coca-Cola" campaign, and appealing to kids could help create life long consumers of the product. The ad uses more kid friendly fonts and colors, to help catch the eye of energetic children, and adults can see how kid like it looks.
The initiative that led Coca-Cola to limit their advertising to children was the 2006 Children's Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative (CFBAI). Although this mainly focused on television advertising (which was what most kids at the time were watching), Coca-Cola was found to not have o change much of their advertising, while their rival, Pepsi did. Coca-Cola still reduced their advertising anyway. Even today, someone can easily find Coca-Cola opinion towards advertising to kids. Here is a piece of their policy that can be found on their website on responsible marketing: "In 2010, we evolved our global Responsible Marketing Policy and redefined the appropriate audience threshold for children's programming from audiences that are more than 50% children younger than 12 years of age to audiences that are more than 35% children younger than 12. This means we will not buy advertising directly targeted at audiences that are more than 35% children younger than 12. Our policy applies to all of our beverages and the media outlets we use, including television, radio and print and, where data is available, Internet and mobile phones." If this ad on the right was created after 2010, instead of the 1990s, it would have probably changed in many ways, like to be appealing to 13+ year olds, since the cut off for their policies is age 12. |
2000's slogan for Coca-Cola was "Coca Cola. Enjoy." This photo ad from 2000 helps illustrate that idea that anyone can enjoy a Coca-Cola, even mammals that are not human. The use of the color blue is a little different from Coke's usual red and white, but it helps illustrate how "cool" Coke can be, both in the literal and figurative senses. The use of a penguin is another call to action of helping the endangered species in the arctic, like the polar bear ads.
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This cool photo ad from 2006 illustrates how far we have come in print images. The sleek look of the model and color scheme helps sell Coke. The use of light, both in the illumination sense and weight sense, help promote the idea that Coca-Cola can be a "light" beverage. The woman smiling also help sell the idea that Coke can make one happy and feel light. Coca Cola Light is the name of Diet Coke in some other countries, which is why it shares the same color scheme as Diet Coke.
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Coca-Cola can still be seen today as partner with many other companies and products. In this Target ad, for example, Coca Cola is partnering with Target and NASCAR. Sports still have a major influence with it comes to advertising. The color scheme of both Target and Coca-Cola is very similar, so it works nicely in an ad like this to utilize the same colors, red and white, to keep the branding of both companies. This partnership works nicely for Coca-Cola, since Target is not a competing cola company.
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Coca-Cola as a company is always trying to create immersive campaigns. One of which goes with the 2009 campaign of "Open Happiness;" not only does Coke as a company want to promote the idea of Coke can make you happy, it also wants to evoke these emotions before even buying the product. A video advertisement that brings this idea to a reality is the 2011 commercial "Reasons to Believe" which features children singing the Oasis song "Whatever." With the children singing in the background and guitar in the background, video clips of different happy events like "more Monopoly is printed than real money" and "1,000,000 moms are baking a chocolate cake" offer hope and optimism to it's viewers. The statistics and cute clips that accompany them do evoke a sense of happiness and belief that the world is a better place, and the Coca-Cola Company helped inspire that feeling to any viewer who watches it.
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Another campaign that Coca-Cola has created is looking at spreading happiness in different countries. The "Let's Go Crazy" campaign looked for different actions in Africa that might go unnoticed and applauded them for how they either spread happiness or helped others in need. From building swing sets to directing traffic, Coke highlights some actions by people throughout the continent, and looks at how happy they are. The product Coke itself is only really seen at the end, so it is still a promotional video, but it still evokes happiness to a viewer.
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Coca Cola began to make ground on social media platforms like Youtube with 2014 "Share A Coke" slogan and campaign. The "Friendly Twist" social media ad has over 9,000,000 views on Youtube and has been shared on different sites like Facebook. It encourages the idea consuming Coke can be a social activity, and can help make friends. While the freshmen in this clip had to work with others to consume Coke, it would help them introduce themselves to others, and it will be a memory they won't forget; Coke was the product and idea that made it happen for these college students.
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With the introduction of Twitter, sharing on social media has been made easier all over the globe, and African countries like Nigeria are no exception. 2014's "Share a Coke" phenomenon could be seen all around the world. This image illustrates the campaign in Nigeria, where the consumption of Coke by Nigerians can be seen the background. All the images still have a red tint to them though, to help unify the Coke ad by keeping up with its consistent color scheme, red and white.
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Continuing with Coke's global trend, The Coca-Cola company in the United Kingdom is one of the first to introduce the "Choose Happiness" campaign, which is a branch off of 2014's "Open Happiness." In this visual, it highlights one of the Great Britain's popular attractions, The Eye, or one of the biggest Ferris wheels in the world. It connects the idea of making yourself happy, riding a Ferris wheel, to drinking Coke. The four colors that are used, as opposed to the usual red and white, are there to help promote other Coca-Cola products: Coke Zero, Diet Coke, and Coke Life.
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To keep up with even looking at Coke advertising to present day, this advertisement was found at the back of my issue of Entertainment Weekly. It is from the December 11th, 2015 issue. Coca-Cola is still promoting their product through print advertising, even though it can be argued to be a "dying art form." It must have still cost a good amount of money to have the whole back of a magazine for an advertisement, especially since it is a fairly popular magazine.
Because Coca-Cola has moved from selling all of their products as one to promoting specific types of Coke, this ad uses the colors that are associated with Diet Coke and caffeine free products. Diet Coke has been branded to be the silver color and caffeine free has the bronze like color as well. This ad mixes those two colors to create a mixture to sell the two types of Coke together: caffeine free Diet Coke. It could be that Coke thought this type of Coca-Cola would sell better to demographic of Entertainment Weekly- like my mother. |
This may be from the UK, but it is still a cool infographic and study that Coke conducted in 2015. Coke UK interviewed up to 3,000 parents and teenagers to see what makes them happy, as part of their "Choose Happiness" campaign. Studies like this produced by Coke further pushes idea that choosing coke is choosing happiness. The colors in this infographic also correlate with the new color palette that Coke UK is promoting, advertising both Coke Classic, Coke Zero, Diet Coke, and Coke Life.
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As part of Coca-Cola's initiative to promote awareness for global warming and the endangered species of the Arctic, the first polar bear commercial aired in 1993. It was a huge hit among viewers, and would also encourage further use of the bears in Coke advertising. For example, one could buy a stuffed polar bear for their children, or take a picture with the polar bear mascot in Atlanta, and even buy special Coke cans and learn that some of the profit would go to helping the polar bears. Immediately after the first commercial aired in 1993, the animators created more, which would later be shown during the holiday season and the 1994 Olympic games. At almost 20 years old, the Polar Bears made a return during the 2012 Superbowl with the New England Patriots against the New York Giants. A few versions were made to air throughout the event, and even to illustrate how the game was going. Even by comparing these two clips, the advances in animation technology is astounding. It took clay figurines and weeks to complete the 1993 clip, while the 2012 Superbowl ads took only days. The computer processing has helped the bears look more "alive" with realistic movements, better looking fur, and more. Both bears help promote the slogan that was used during the year(s): in 1993, it was "Always Cool" and in 2012 it was still "Open Happiness."
As we catch up to modern day bottling of Coca-Cola, it is still important to note the modifications Coke has made to differentiate itself from it's competitors. The first image on the left is the first 20 oz plastic bottle (PET) that was invented in 1993. The distinct shape is still similar to that of the contour bottle that first made Coke distinct in 1915. The same image also illustrates how global Coke has become, with advertising in Asian countries as well. The second image is the 2008 aluminum bottle. This particular bottle is award winning, for its sleek design and functionality. With just the colors alone, it sells to be a Coke product, without even seeing the cola inside. The third image is the 2009 "plant bottle." This bottle also took recognition for being the one of the first products to be 100% recyclable and also made up of around 30% plant-based material. It helped illustrate Coca-Cola's initiative to help the environment, the world we live in today. Also note how the 2009 bottle's design is very similar to the bottle we have today, especially with the printing of the Coca-Cola trademark in the plastic.