Reward your curiosity

If you’ve ever been curious about the original recipe for Coca Cola I’m sure this week has been a delight for you.  Whether or not the recipe uncovered by This American Life is the real deal people seemed pretty excited about it.

I can’t help but love the Coke brand and everything they’ve managed to achieve. I mean Nestle, one of the world’s largest companies barely has a hold on Easter and yet Coke INVENTED Christmas as we know it. A celebration which has nothing to do with sugary water and for a lot of people doesn’t have much to do with “happiness” either.

What a great proposition for your brand though; happiness. In blind taste tests people often prefer the taste of Pepsi, but Coke is said to “taste like childhood”. They say the best thing about nostalgia is we only remember the best things.

There is really no competition between the two companies (at least in this part of the world). Everywhere I’ve worked has had a fridge stocked with Coca Cola products, including an agency who had Pepsi as a major client. (To be fair this was inside the giant Publicis building).

So what are my favourite Coca Cola ads?

1. The happiness machine was brilliance (if you haven’t seen it do watch).

2. I also loved the use of Facebook at Israel’s Coca Cola Village allowing teenagers to “like” things in the real world.

3. Being a huge fan of Mel Ramos I always hoped a brand would borrow his artwork. Which Publicis Mojo NZ did in 2007

Probably my favourite outdoor campaign ever was also done in NZ. I can’t find images of it anywhere (please send them to me if you have some!). For a couple of weeks there were billboards all around the country with riddles on them. Cream writing on a red background. The brand seemed like Coke, but the lack of white made me unsure. I was incredibly curious about what these billboards could be advertising.

A few weeks later they were replaced with the line “Reward your curiosity” and a Vanilla Coke pack shot. I was in Wellington when I first saw this billboard and I stopped at the first diary I could find to buy a Vanilla Coke.