Brita Built a City out of Sugar Cubes to Show You What a Lifetime of Soda Looks Like

In the past, water filter brand Brita has targeted plastic bottles as public enemy No. 1, but now it has its sights on a new foe: Soda.

A new spot created by DDB California uses towering piles of sugar cubes to show the impact of drinking one sugary soda a day (which would be pretty a moderate intake for some families). In the ad, we see a stack of cubes illustrating a single day of cola, followed by a skyscraper modeled from a year’s sugar, ending on a cityscape built from the  221,314 sugar cubes a soda fan could consume “over an average adult lifetime.”

It’s a striking visual, one taken even further by the brand’s #ChooseWater campaign in an exhibit this week at New York’s Chelsea Market, where roughly 1 million sugar cubes (weighing 7,000 pounds) were shaped into an even larger skyline to reflect the amount consumed by a family of four over their lifetimes:

The sculpture features 28 buildings, varying in height from 2 to 7 feet. That’s one tall drink of terrifying.



Coca-Cola Unveils First TV Ad Made Completely With User-Generated Content

Here's a first for Coca-Cola—a TV commercial comprised entirely of short video clips made by fans (aside from some very brief animations).

The spot, produced by Wieden + Kennedy and set to premiere during Wednesday's season finale of American Idol, came out of a contest announced a few months ago. The brand invited teens to submit short video clips sharing what it feels like when they take a sip of Coke. The best clips, they were told, would be featured in a national Coca-Cola TV ad.

Coke got some 400 submissions, and chose 40 for the final cut. The clips in the ad come from all over the world—from Brazil to Salt Lake City to Jacksonville, Fla.

The spot, titled "This Is AHH," will air this week on teen-focused networks including The CW, MTV and Adult Swim. It's part of a teen campaign called "The AHH Effect," now in its second year.




Coke Plays Peacemaker in Another War: the Milan Soccer Rivalry

Here's an amusing bit of mischief. Coca-Cola brought together fans on both sides of one of soccer's fiercest rivalries by making them give each other sodas.

"Fair Play Machines," a campaign from McCann in Milan, shows the brand placing a pair of its signature high-tech, manipulative vending machines at opposite ends of San Siro Stadium in Milan while club teams Inter Milan and A.C. Milan were facing off there. Fans of each team could hit a button to serve a Coke to an opposing fan at the other machine—effectively forcing opponents to do something nice for one another.

The clip is full of the happy vibes to be expected from Coke ads, and a nice nod to good sportsmanship—in a league where its opposite has been disturbingly true lately.

It's also reminiscent of the brand's "Small World Machines" campaign from last year, which tried to ameliorate the India-Pakistan conflict with a similar set of interconnected machines—though softening a sports feud is maybe a less pretentious bit of peacemaking for a sugar water company.

Credits below.

CREDITS
Client: Coca-Cola
Roel Annega – CSE Marketing Director
Andreas Johler – CSE My Coke Director
Guido Rosales – EUG IMC Director
Claudia Navarro – CSE IMC Director
Francesco Cibò – CSE Content Excellence Manager
Camilla Zanaria – CSE Content Excellence Manager
Agency: McCann Worldgroup Milan
Global Creative Director: Miguel Bemfica,
Creative Director: Gastón Guetmonovitch, Miguel Usandivaras
Art Director: Cristina Caballero
Copywriter: Curro Piqueras
Graphic Designer: Marina Tercelán
Account Manager: Sanziana Fanica
Account Director: Andrei Kaigorodov
Agency Producer: Massimo Busato
Production Company: Filmmaster Productions
Director: Edoardo Lugari,
Executive Producer: Karim Bartoletti
Producer: Elena Marabelli
Editor: Francesco Cusanno, Toboga
Music: Alberto Cimarrusti, Bronze Radio Return




Mountain Dew’s Exquisite ‘Living Portraits’ Show Brand’s Endorsers in All Their Mythical Glory

Mountain Dew's "Living Portraits" series is one of the most innovative and intricate short-form campaigns of the year. Who'd've thunk it, especially after the brand's high-profile ad missteps a few months ago? Created by BBDO and Psyop, each 30-second "Living Portrait" spotlights a different Dew endorser—Nascar driver Dale Earnhardt Jr., skateboarder Paul Rodriguez and snowboarder Danny Davis. Fun, freaky symbolism is used to capture the essence of each and, for lack of a better term, mythologize their lives. The spots all take a similar approach, with the endorsers seated on stylized thrones and the shot slowly pulling back to reveal bedazzling details.

Davis sits on ornately sculptured ice, slurping Dew and strumming a guitar. The camera pulls back to reveal a wintry jam session with members of his crew, the ice sculptor, birds of prey and wolves in attendance. A yeti plays drums. Snowboarders soar in a rainbow sky. A cute, briefcase-sized eyeball lounges by the fire, diggin' Danny's vibes.

Components move at different speeds, mixing 3-D layering and 2-D animation with live action and matte effects. Yet there's no discord, and the elements combine to create harmonious representations of the endorsers' lives and achievements.

Fans can visit Mountain Dew's website to unlock the secrets behind each portrait's imagery. The outsized eyeball in Davis's spot refers to FrendsVision, where the snowboarder and his crew share information about the Frends brand and disseminate clips of themselves "performing skits, snowboarding, playing music and entertaining the public the best way they know how." So, basically, the eye opens onto another ad. I didn't see that coming.

And we learn that the crew is jamming around a "peace fire," because "Danny lives his life preaching peace." That's a bit precious for me—sounds like an overblown piece of you know what—and I wonder if perhaps the symbols should have been left unexplained, adding to the mystery, allowing fans to debate their deeper meaning.

The yeti's presence isn't explained at all! Smelling a Pulitzer, I sent an email, and a rep for Mountain Dew parent PepsiCo explained: "The Yeti was included as it's part of mountain folklore." Rock on, noble yeti! That furry dude really keeps the beat.

See the other spots below.


    

Soda and Barbecue Brisket Finally Packaged Together in One Gnarly Bottle

Ever wanted to chomp a big, savory bite of barbecue brisket right out of the side of your soda bottle? Of course you haven't. That would be disgusting and real damn strange. But Texas-based soda brand Big Red is floating the idea anyway in its new ad for the (blessedly fictional) Big Red BBQ Bottle. The spot was created by Austin comedy duo Beef & Sage, who also partnered with the brand last year to create a surprisingly entertaining video series called "Don't Tell Mom We're Doing Experiments in the Garage." The Big Red BBQ Bottle is apparently the first of three new videos that will roll out this summer. "Our new series highlights new 'innovations' that Big Red created to either solve a common consumer problem or make the lives of our consumers better," Big Red marketing svp Thomas Oh tells AdFreak. "Complementing BBQ with the sweet, smooth flavor of Big Red is a fan favorite, so we wanted to feature a new way to enjoy both." Well, Thomas, mission disturbingly accomplished. Credits and more Big Red comedy clips after the jump.

CREDITS
Client: Big Red
Spot: "Big Red BBQ Bottle"
Agency: Real Normal/Beef & Sage
Copywriter: Beef & Sage
Executive Producer: Toby Schwartz
Director: Kirk Johnson
Art Director: Sam Webber
Director of Photography: Nathanael Vorce
Editor: Beef & Sage
Production Services: Real Normal

    

Coca-Cola’s ‘Smile Back’ Video: Cute or Kind of Creepy?

Coca-Cola's new "Smile Back" out-of-home stunt (scroll down to see it) is cute and nicely done, and everyone everywhere will love it. But let's overthink it for a moment.

Coke is famously skilled at being able to "Open happiness," as its slogan goes, through innovative real-world stunts. These have ranged from overly generous vending machines to splittable cans and personalized bottles. The typical transaction is that Coke gives you something of obvious value—a free drink or a fun, surprising experience—and that thing makes you happy, sometimes infectiously so. That's an honest interaction. This new stunt, though—produced and crowdsourced with Victors & Spoils and MOFILM—is different. As the company explains in the YouTube description:

"Coca-Cola sent our people all over the world, from Jamaica to the United Kingdom to Pakistan and more, to simply smile at strangers—to see who would smile back. As we passed others on the street, on the bus or in the park, we gave a smile, held up smiley face posters or did a silly dance with a grin on our faces, all to prompt a little friendliness in the mundane. When someone smiled back, they received a free Coke or some other fun prize: everything from sunglasses to hats to bicycles."

So, instead of a product, first you get a smile—from someone who, regardless of how awesome they may seem, has been paid to smile at you. (This is sometimes called a Professional Smile, and is clearly of dubious value.) Then, you must respond positively to this pretend display of affection (bribe) to get the reward that you previously got for free. The transaction has changed—it's backwards. You agree to be made happy by something false in order to have the chance to be made happy by something true. (You might get punched in the nose, actually, if you tried this in New York City.)

That distinction may sound like B.S., but you can sense the difference. It's why Coke's security-camera spot was so good—it captured moments that couldn't have been more genuine. And it's why the "Smile Back" video (and the earlier huggable vending machine from Singapore, which had similar problems involving misplaced affection) feels more manufactured. For all the happiness on display here—and yes, not all of it is bogus—the spot lacks the purity of concept that makes the best Coke work sing.

Happiness is infectious, but this stunt might not leave everyone smiling.

    

Diet Coke Invents World’s Thinnest Vending Machine, So You Can Feel Even Fatter by Comparison

Oh, hey there, ladies. Feeling fat? Of course you are. Don't worry. I've got some advice. Don't get sugary, fattening soda from that fat, tubby vending machine over there. Get delicious, trimming diet soda from from me! The Slender Vender. I'm so skinny, I fit between chairs at the hair salon, so you can be thin, but pretty too. I fit between treadmills at the gym, so you can drink more diet soda—it hydrates!—while you're working hard, so you can be more thin, like me. You won't find me, though, at that sketchy artist's loft in Brazil, where that soap company hangs out. Whatever you do, don't go there. They'll try to convince you that you're not anywhere near as fat and hideous as you think you are. And they'll probably serve you soda in a creepy skinny can. For Diet Coke, from Ogilvy Paris.

    

The Real Bears

Coup de cœur pour The Real Bears, une vidéo d’animation réalisée dans le but de prévenir des risques et conséquences de la consommation excessive de sodas. Faisant référence à l’image de l’ours blanc buvant une boisson sucrée souvent utilisée par Coca-Cola. A découvrir dans la suite.

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Coke: Is it the Deadly Thing?

234937-300-0-1Coca Cola, invented in the late 19th century and marketed as a “cure-all” for diseases like morphine addiction, dyspepsia, neurasthenia, headache, and impotence has come a long way in a century. A friend once told me that Coke’s special formula used cocaine. Which is true, although at the time I called him a “lying pooh-pooh head.” In fact, a single glass of Coke contained nine milligrams of blow. The nice thing? No crusty white boogers or mirror checks before going outside. ‘Cola’ was spawned from the Kola nut, which added caffeine to the mix. It’s a wonder Ritalin wasn’t invented sooner.

One thing fair to assume in a company the size of Coke; upper management probably doesn’t have a clue about work in the trenches. So, when a plant worker at a Coke bottling plant in Columbia was gunned down for trying to unionize, no one upstairs was any wiser. (It was actually seven murders…). Well, this week that all changes.

Activist organization “The Campaign to Stop Killer Coke” plans a negative PR blitz in Atlanta against the beverage giant. The group, which claims Atlanta-based The Coca-Cola Co. (NYSE: KO) is guilty of labor, human rights and environmental abuses, will have this week a mobile billboard truck on metro Atlanta streets campaigning against Coke’s alleged abuses. One billboard says “Unthinkable! Undrinkable! Murders in Colombia, Child Labor in El Salvador, Stealing and Polluting Water in India, El Salvador and Mexico.” A second billboard says “Killer-Cola: The Drink that Represses!”

Coca Cola’s response, stunned that a PR blitz consists of a single billboard, has called an agency review.

Jeff Louis is a Strategic Media Planner, Project Manager, and New Business Coordinator. His passion is writing, contributing to BMA as well as freelancing. He’d love to hear from you: www.linkedin.com/in/jefflouis or on twitter @jlo0312.