Open happiness

Old charm, nostalgia…, it’s cola Christmas, tis the season to celebrate and to go shopping for presents, although unfortunately, as the 'little girl who has become a woman' in the ad does, you might have to carry them all around awkwardly in your hand (carrier bags don’t look so cool). But it’s okay, in spite of that and of the overwhelming crowds in Oxford Street, you are still in the mood to smile and make your rosy cheeks glow at the chance encounter with cola Santa; and lucky you, you still have a free hand to grab his nicely shaped cola bottle (Freudian connotations at work).

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Coca-cola: Open happiness
Lascotts Road, N22
London

Holidays are coming

Well..., Coca-cola, the no. 1 global brand. So what is in this ad? Self-reference to previous and wider campaigns (TV); the substitution of the not so all-inclusive word ‘Christmas’ by the more politically correct ‘holidays’; the iconic simplicity and cosy familiarity of the glass bottle; the Americana of the eighteen wheeler truck; the hijacking of Santa Claus; and more subjectively, the rather unsettling dark undertones of the image, that half-night setting, the truck with its headlights on, rather menacing reminding me of that evil beast of Spielberg’s “Duel”, which in its Spanish version was more explicitly titled “El Diablo sobre Ruedas” (“The Devil on Wheels”)…, yes, holidays are coming, Coca-cola is coming…

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Coca-cola: Holidays are coming
Stamford Street, SE1
1 Dec 2009