Coca-Cola is a global brand. The company’s headquarter is in Atlanta Georgia, but it has business interests all over the world. Its Coca-Cola drink is popular with many customers in all parts of the world. The drink is as old as the company is, but its appeal never seems to fade over time.
This is the result of carefully planned advertising, and marketing campaigns that seek to retain its appeal to all the people in the world. This makes it imperative to look at the flagship advertisement for the Coca-Cola open happiness campaign released in 2010. It will uncover some of the principles the company uses in its advertisements. The goal of this analysis is to examine the effectiveness of the advertisement in communicating the message of the advertising campaign.
The advert starts with a man taking a nap on a picnic shawl. There is a Coca-Cola bottle next to the man. A ladybird flies in and alerts other insects about the presence of the Coca-Cola bottle. Soon after, bees fly in and push down the bottle. Then, locusts on standby use their hind legs to set the bottle rolling downhill towards a stream. At this point, the sleeping man reaches out for the bottle, but a butterfly distracts the man by tickling his nose.
The bottle rolls all the way into the stream. Once there, dragonflies navigate the bottle across obstacles, but the bottle ends up stuck after falling off a waterfall. Thereafter, a swinging silkworm dislodges the bottle. Finally, a rhinoceros beetle opens the bottle. Leaves in the nearby bush conduct the drink to individual flowers from where all the insects participating in the heist get a share.
The advert uses insects as the main actors. Each insect group plays a unique role in the process of getting the bottle opened in order to share its goodness. This choice makes the advert stand out immediately because the insects are doing something that is normally beyond their capacity.
The shared sense of mission provides a unique appeal towards drinking Coca-Cola because it implies that Coca-Cola makes happiness an open thing that is available to everyone. The main appeal employed is the shared sense of happiness. As noted earlier, this was the flagship advert for the Coca-Cola open happiness marketing campaign. Since the Coca-Cola Company sells its products worldwide, the choice of insects in the advert makes it acceptable to all the cultures without the risk of putting off some viewers.
The logical problems in the advert include the fact that the man does not notice any of the things going on around him. The solution to this problem comes from the distraction by the butterfly, which stops him from discovering that the bottle is missing. The other problem is that the insects used in the advertisement are not strong enough to push over a Coca-Cola bottle.
The makers of the advertisement resolved on group action by the insects. The final logical problem is that the insects needed coordination to act as a unit. The ladybird provides leadership for the whole army of insects by travelling with the bottle all the way to the end of the advert. This advertisement effectively communicates the feeling that Coca-Cola sought to pass on to its audience, which is that happiness is open for all.