Coca-cola sticks to its old-school guns with ‘the single largest marketing push the soft drink giant has ever run.’

CherryFlava gives us the rundown here: http://www.cherryflava.com/cherryflava/2010/04/coca-cola-quest-world-cup-2010-ad.html

I’ve got nothing against the effort put in and the 3d awesomeness that has been created, but I’m pretty bored by the idea that Coke just wants to interrupt arguably the most passion-driven event in the world show us some stranger getting thirsty from jumping on robots and reaching for a Coke.

All this opportunity to connect and interact with the beautiful game and its singing, screaming, crying and cheering fans (the actions that make us thirsty), and Coke wants to interrupt those actions to shut us up, bring us down from the high and remind us to pick up a case of Coke before the next game.

But, please – I don’t want to make this a monologue – what do you think?

PS – COME ON ENGLAND!

Filed under: Brands, Building Communities, Focusing On The Customer, Humanizing Brands, Marketing by Craig Ritchie
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Tags: campaign, coca-cola, coke, interruption marketing, world cup

Coca-cola and Wieden & Kennedy are expanding their “happiness” branding with a new spot featuring a world filled with gamers and social networkers ignoring each other while they are jacked in to their virtual worlds.

One lone “reality-lover” wades through the avatars on the way to enjoy a soda pop. When he finally gets to enjoy his soft drink among the wifi-ers, he meets a fellow cola enthusiast who learns that maybe socializing is better face-to-face, over a Coke.

There’s another story here, however. Assuming the spot wants to sell to teens, it misses the mark. The world has changed but social networking and gaming is the norm to millenials. They don’t see faces buried in mobile devices as a societal failure. They would prefer to broadcast their thoughts entire lives to many others than to enjoy a double malt with a stranger at the drug store.

The target will be watching this spot and, yes, will be intrigued by the plethora of mingling avatars, but they’ll be wondering what game each player is enjoying, not what tonic can save them from their 24/7 wired addiction. Coke should be asking, ‘How can we make ourselves the drink of choice for social networking?’ And, ‘Does our agency really understand the new paradigms of the digital-driven world?’

(Perhaps appropriately, you can view the non-embeddable spot at Creativity.)

Filed under: Brands, Futurism, Ideas, Marketing by Craig Ritchie
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Tags: advertising, agency, avatars, coke, commercial, creativity, digital, gaming, wieden & kennedy