Dentsu’s Merdeka LHS creates limited-edition Coke cans
IT was history in the making. On June 12, US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un met at a summit in Singapore, the first between a North Korean leader and a sitting American president.
To commemorate the moment in history, Coca-Cola made limited-edition cans designed by Dentsu Aegis Network Malaysia’s creative agency, Merdeka LHS, with logos written half in English, half in Korean with a message in both languages that reads “Here’s to Peace, Hope and Understanding”.
The teams then took to the streets to interview people in Singapore on their thoughts and feelings about this historical event.
The video ends with the song “I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing (In Perfect Harmony)” made popular by Coca-Cola’s 1971 “Hilltop” advertisement.
Commenting on the campaign and the rationale of marketing the Coca-Cola brand during a political summit, Coca-Cola Co Asia head of creative content and design excellence Pratik Thakar tells StarBizWeek that the Coca-Cola brand has always supported and celebrated positive change and progression in societies all over the world.
“Our most famous one is the ‘hilltop advert’ from 1971, where we celebrate multiculturalism, unity, peace and love. Coca-Cola believes in uniting people and bridging divides.
“The summit was a perfect platform for the brand to demonstrate so. The idea was to seize the moment to be at the crossroad of an important time in history to spread our message of hope and optimism,” he says.
Elaborating on the strategy behind the campaign, Pratik describes the company as one which is “stubbornly optimistic” about people. Coca-Cola’s role is to strive to see the best in humanity, and then help everyone else to see it too, he adds.
“Our advertising legacy is made up of several examples like this where Coca-Cola has celebrated moments of optimism for change,” he says.
During this time, he says the Singapore summit was on everyone’s top of mind, adding that context is key to any “point-of-view” campaign.
“We kept our theme simple, focusing on ‘peace, hope and understanding’ – keywords that were literally on everyone’s minds and the underlying values that inspired and guided the historic summit to take place,” he explains.
Sharing on the idea behind the campaign, Merdeka LHS chief creative officer Huang Ean Hwa says it was all about the coming together of two powerful leaders for the first time in history.
So, with that in mind, he adds it was quite simple as the agency merged the typical Coca-Cola logo with the logo in Korean, symbolising the significance alliance of two nations that have been at odds at each other.
On the promotion of the campaign, Huang says: “We believe in integrated brand experience (IBX). Our biggest media channel is our own packaging, our ‘owned media’. We gave out samples of the commemorative Coca-Cola cans to the Singaporean public, on June 11, a day before the summit and filmed it. The videos and some digital GIFs were seeded in social media the day after.
“What’s important to note is that, the team approached this idea not by creating more advertising – the world doesn’t need more advertising – but by creating something of value. In this case, the classic CocaCola collectible can.”
Pratik says the company went ahead developing the campaign despite the on-again off-again nature of the summit. All in all, it took the company about a month from the initial idea to the limited production run, he says.
“We are delighted that many of our customers and consumers in Singapore and around the world have responded warmly to our message of peace, hope and understanding. We had many requests for the special edition cans too.”
For a successful marketing campaign, Huang notes that it all boils down to the client and agency having trust in each other, adding that there should be no layers in the decision making process. — By DALJIT DHESI