Always Look on the Coke Side of Life

Always Look on the Coke Side of Life

In an increasingly health minded society, the early 2000’s saw a decline in the sales of carbonated beverages, and Coke was no exception.  In 2003, the president of Coca Cola Steven Heyer began an initiative to increase the company’s creativity and focus on projects with its creative partners(1).  The company approached advertising agency Wieden + Kennedy in 2009 about building a campaign that reflected these changes.  The creatives at W + K proposed a campaign that focused on creating a relatable brand rather than selling Coke.   Thus the “Coke Side of Life” campaign was born, its goal being to “bring a little bit of happiness” to the consumer.  The campaign started with an ad simply titled “Videogame.” 

The ad was a huge success.  Coca Cola decided to extend the campaign to an international audience, but soon discovered that “The Coke Side of Life” didn't translate into a number of languages.  In 2009, the advertising campaign to rebrand a brand was rebranded, changing the name to “Open Happiness” in order to appeal to a wider audience.

The following ad was created by a branch of advertising giant Young and Rubicon in Dubai, UAE and is part of the Open Happiness campaign(2). 

The first thing to do is to examine the ad simply as a video, not an advertisement.  I will do my best to ignore the semiotic and ideological implications of the ad, focusing instead on the techniques used to grab attention.

Music

The first thing that grabs your attention in this video is the music.  Even before you've been able to process the first frame, the music has established the tone of what’s to come.  The song playing in the background starts off very simply with an upbeat, hopeful piano riff.  At the 48 second mark, the music drastically changes.  It transitions from simple piano to a heavily processed, multi-layered track, but it manages to maintain the same tone as before if not increasing the upbeat feel.

Try watching the ad, at least the first few seconds, without sound.  Even though the words and the imagery are the same, it suddenly has a completely different feel.  We are shown the world of modern day wage slavery.  We are shown people who have to leave their families in order to support them and can’t even afford to contact them while they are away.  If you watch the ad without sound, you feel as though you are watching that heavy handed Sarah McLachlan animal abuse ad.

The music not only grabs your attention with its upbeat melody, it counterbalances the rather depressing imagery you are being shown.  The ad is supposed to make you feel happy, not guilty that all your clothes are made in sweat shop by children who are probably dead.

Color Palette

The color red is the most meaningful color in the world.  It means blood, love, pain, and Coca Cola.  The color palette in this ad is focused on red.  All the other colors are muted, but red manages to maintain its vibrancy and is shown predominantly in every scene.  When text comes on the screen that is particularly important, it is placed on a red background.  (I promised I would try to avoid ideological examination for the time being, but it’s incredibly hard to avoid.)

This ad starts off by giving a brief glimpse into the lives of people who are ostensibly slaves by showing where they work, what they eat, etc…  Text pops up on the screen saying that these “workers” make $6 dollars a day and that it costs them nearly $1 to call home.  This information is much like the build up to a joke.  Everything before the punchline is just pretense so you can arrive at the punchline.  Once the punchline is delivered, what was said before becomes irrelevant.

The punchline comes later in the video (starting at the same time the music changes) and is split into three parts.  You can tell that this is the real meat, the real purpose of the ad, because, as I mentioned before, the background turns red.  This is a sharp contrast from the fairly muted colors of the video that immediately grabs your attention.  Your eyes are instantly drawn to the curvy white letters that read, “So what if every Coke came with a few extra minutes of happiness?”

This is a great line because it perfectly wraps up what the ad is trying to implicitly say.  The title of this advertisement is “Hello Happiness” and is part of the “Open Happiness” campaign.  The ad proposes an implicit relation between Coke and happiness.  What they are attempting to do is to redefine happiness.  Happiness is not talking to your family you haven’t seen in months; happiness is Coke.  What these poor lonely works need isn't some time to interact with the people they have sworn to protect and support, they just need a Coke.  And if all these unfortunate people need to be happy is a Coke, then imagine how happy a regular person would be with a cold coke in their hand.

Cinematography

This ad is incredibly confused in its message.  It starts off by laying out an effective argument against capitalism, consumerism, and the free market and argues that family is the most important thing in the world.  At 10 seconds, one of the workers says, “If working here for the rest of my life means my wife, children and parents can be happy, then I would stay here forever.”  This is the ultimate sacrifice.  He is willing to give up his identity, his body, his life in order to support his family, but if he really wanted his family to be happy, why doesn't he just buy them a Coke?

Though the ad doesn't explicitly attack capitalism and big business, it does so implicitly.  When the man I mentioned before says he is willing to stay in Dubai forever, we as the audience hate the system that makes this man unable to be with his family.  When we are told that it costs a sixth of a man’s daily wages for him to contact his family, we are appalled that a company would charge these poor people so much.  But the real attack on the free market and industrialization is the camera work.

What makes the camera work so interesting is that it is all handheld.  This seems to be rare in most videos.  Having a tripod or a dolly add steadiness and professionalism to a project, which is why it was rejected in this add.  A tripod or a dolly adds a kind of cold, mechanical detachment to a piece, much the same way that these companies are cold and detached, heartlessly stealing money from these hard working men.  Shooting handheld is a revolt against industry and an effort to focus on the humanity of these men who have sacrificed their lives for their families.  This subtle revolution against big business probably cost Coca Cola millions of dollars.

Nameless big business is represented as an oppressing force in these men’s lives, but this subtle message is a red herring.  The only way that these men can experience happiness is through the purchase of goods, through the purchase of Coke.  Big business is not the oppressor, it is the liberator.  The only time these men are allowed happiness is when a big business decides to be gracious, but even then the status quo remains the same.  These men still have to purchase a product.
The business must remain profitable.

Bottle Caps

This ad is rife with signs and hidden ideology, but I am going to examine just one, the bottle cap.  A bottle cap has historically been an easy sign to interpret.  It has been, until recently, an indexical sign meaning it points to the existence of something else.  In essence, a bottle cap merely implied that someone had drunk a soda.  In recent years, there has been an effort to transform the bottle cap from an index to a symbol, to something that doesn't point to something else but something that means something by itself. 

There have been countless contests where one lucky person would find the word “winner” stamped into their bottle cap.  This made the bottle cap into a symbol of hope, of the chance to win a boatload of money to transport you out of your dull life.  Then the idea of exchanging bottle caps for points came about.  People would save bottle caps, enter their codes online, receive points and then redeem those points for prizes.  Bottle caps were turned into currency.

This ad is a continuation of the attempt to turn bottle caps into currency.  The difference is that previous attempts had turned bottle caps into a kind of voucher.  The real currency was the points awarded for each bottle cap.  These points could be used to “purchase” items.  In “Hello Happiness,” the bottle cap itself becomes currency.

“Hello Happiness” not only turns Coke caps into currency, it turns it into a more viable currency than actual money.  The add states that it costs $0.91 a minute for a worker to talk to his family.  The average cost of a bottle of Coke in Dubai is $0.50 (3)(4).  One bottle cap prov
ides a worker with three minutes of talk effectively reducing the price of a minute of phone time to $0.16 when paid for with Coke caps.

The implication of turning Coke caps into currency are numerous, but they all reinforce consumerism and the relationship between happiness and Coca Cola.  Whether or not you agree with it, our society is based on the idea that money buys happiness.  The men in this ad reinforce this belief.  They are working hard, far away from home, in order to financially support their families so that their families can be happy.  Coke proposes a world where a Coke cap can provide happiness by allowing these men to talk to their families.  At first it might seem like a generous gift, something that goes against the idea that you need money to be happy, but by turning Coke caps into money they are actually
reinforcing this idea.

The only way that these men can be happy is to purchase.  They must first purchase a Coke, which has been transformed into money.  Then they must purchase the three minutes of communication with their family with their new Coke Cash. Only through this exchange of currency can they find happiness.

What this ultimately means is that Coke thinks the only way to be happy is to be a slave to Coke. People should abandon the idea of working for reasonable wages.  You work for money so that you can be happy, but Coke is happiness and Coke is money.  To work for money is ridiculous.  The men portrayed in this ad are  modern slaves, but Coke says that’s okay.  As long as Coke is there for them, they will be happy.

What the ad proposes is that it is providing poor, unfortunate workers with happiness, but what they
don’t tell us is that they are redefining happiness.  The add sets up a fairly simple set of equations.

        IF

·         Money = Happiness (culturally established and reestablished in this ad)

·         Coke = Happiness (already well established)

·         Coke = Money

       THEN

·         All these things equal each other.  They are inseparable.

Coke proposes that happiness is the most important out of any force (more important than family, money, humanity, etc…) and that Coke is the only way that you can find true happiness.  If you believe money buys happiness, then Coke is money.  If you believe that family provides happiness, Coke becomes your family. It's the perfect commodity.  So take a load off, don’t worry about your job, your family, your taxes.  Open up an ice cold Coke and know everything will be okay.

Resources
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB123189331806379409
http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/coca-colas-happiness-machines
http://adsoftheworld.com/media/ambient/cocacola_hello_happiness
www.dandad.org/en/coca-cola/
http://www.digitaljournal.com/business/business/coca-cola-commercializes-21st-century-slavery/article/393162