Bottling up your feelings?

AdAge reports on the new to-be-launched Coke campaign – Happiness in a bottle (free registration required to read the article)

After trying a dose of reality, Coca-Cola Co. is turning to the effervescent message that drinking a Coke is “happiness in a bottle” for its new advertising campaign. While TV is a major aspect of the global effort, themed “The Coke side of life,” digital, viral and consumer-created content will dominate the continuous feed of creative during the year.

The happiness angle comes from a huge research (what else?!) that Coke has undertaken, called then”Big Dig” which revealed that consumers had a “deep-down love for the brand, but it wasn’t as top of mind.” They also learned that what loyal Coke drinkers love most about the brand was the physical and emotional uplift they got when drinking the product. (Note : Product, not the brand)

The Coke side of life is certainly not one of their better advertising slogans. Interestingly, happiness (from the bottle straight into the mouth) is not really a new association with Coke. Legend has it that the Coca-Cola name in China initially translated as as “Ko-ka-ko-la”, meaning “Bite the wax tadpole” or “female horse stuffed with wax”, depending on the dialect. Coke then researched 40,000 characters to find a phonetic equivalent “ko-kou-ko-le”, translating into “happiness in the mouth”.

So, as Coke globally struggles with providing better emotional meaning to consumers, in India the campaign has moved back to. A very tarty Aishwarya Rai making whistle sounds with an empty Coke bottle (and what is with that voice?). Thande ka tadka is as pointless and unimpressive an ad as I have seen in a long time. And coming on the heels of Aamir in Piyo sar uthaake, this ad is a huge let-down. With all of India wilting under the summer sun (peak time for Cola sales), surely Coke needs something cooler than thande ka tadka?

Earlier posts on Coke :

Vanilla Coke and ‘Wakau’

Cola communication and the consumer