The phrase “well I hope they know what they’re doing” comes to mind when viewing Greenpeace Australia’s crowd-funded TVC which squarely paints Coca Cola as the bad guy in the battle to increase plastic recycling rates.
So far, so no dead birds.
The commercial features many classic cola commercial motifs – beach, friends, cool kids – and oh, dead birds dropping from the sky. Many of them.
Whether this will spark recycling legislation and incentives from our state governments or end up as a lawyer’s picnic, only time will tell. One thing for certain: the creative team behind the jolting effort understands at least two marketing truths:
1. you can’t mild people into action.
2. executing a newsworthy marketing option might cost a lot of money and take a lot of courage but it is repaid many times over in the free media coverage it gains. We think it’s bloody good. Warning: anyone who claims that the birds will be too off-putting for the campaign to achieve its goal is missing the whole point and shouldn’t be working in social marketing. Warning: anyone who claims that the birds will be too off-putting for the campaign to achieve its goal is missing the whole point and shouldn’t be working in social marketing.
BTW: this rapidly-dropped Mountain Dew commercial has been described as “the most racist ever”. The news story does a pretty good job in explaining what is a rather complex story. You see there’s this goat addicted to soft drink…
This goat needs a 12-step program.
Your thoughts on these two are welcome.