An Open Invitation to the Coca-Cola Company

Get ready. I’m about to prove to the world that I have no idea how to run a multi-billion-dollar company, especially one that relies so heavily on advertising. I’m no Gilette CEO, but I think this idea has legs. So here goes. You listening, Coke?

Do you like Coke? Or are you a Pepsi person? Well, I’m about to unveil the best way to end the so-called Cola Wars and hand the victory over to Coca-Cola (sorry PepsiCo, you lost me when you sold Taco Bell to Yum!).

The basic idea: stop advertising for Coke.

That’s it. Stop running ads. Entirely. I’m not kidding.

What the hell else does the Coca-Cola Company really do? Any R&D costs? No, not really. How about ingredients? Well, corn syrup, carbon dioxide, and water. Sounds cheap to me. So what do they actually do with the buckets of cash you give to them to guzzle down gallons of their caffeinated sugar-water?

It’s all in the advertising. So, stop doing it. Here’s how I envision it…

Coke puts out a bunch of ads starting around the big Thanksgiving football season teasing viewers to stay tuned for the “biggest announcement in soft drinks, ever”. Then, around the time of the Super Bowl, they sponsor an awesome half-time show and unveil their announcement:

No more advertising for Coke. Ever.

This is the last big Coca-Cola blow-out. The last hurrah. The big enchilada. They hand out ice-cold Coke to everyone there, including the groupies on the field clawing at whatever hip band they have playing, and everyone sings that, “I’d like to buy the world a Coke” song together, complete with big lighted Coke audience cards and shit.

Man, it’d be a huge Coke love-in. All in front of a Superbowl crowd.

And the punch line? Instead of spending money on advertising for Coke, they take the majority of that money and put it back into two things: a) lowering the price of Coke, and b) contributing to charities.

Think about that. They will totally kill Pepsi in the price war. Coke will go from like $1.25 per 20oz to like $0.25 or even less. And on top of that, $0.10 goes to feeding the hungry or something! Shit, you just can’t lose!

So, how do they get people to buy Coke? Well, first off, Coke doesn’t say it will stop advertising any of its other bazillion products, just their flagship Coca-Cola brown sticky drink. So Sprite and all that stuff still goes on like any other product.

The secret is taking the viral marketing to a totally new level. Now, they say to the consumers (probably in an awesome Superbowl commercial and during halftime) that they need your help to keep Coke alive. Drink Coke not because it’s the superior tasting drink. Drink Coke because it’s the right thing to do. You need a refreshing Cola beverage — why not drink the one that is combating AIDS in Africa?

“But we need you to spread the word. We won’t be advertising Coke anymore, so you need to. Get your friends to drink Coke. Tell them the story. Pass it along. We are putting the fate of the company in your hands.”

They put a bunch of cool “Drink Coke” button designs, flyers, pamphlets, and paper cut-outs on their web site in PDF format. We go download them and pass them out, wear them proudly, and stick them under people’s windshield wipers (okay, that’s just annoying — we won’t do that).

Then, with Coke ads going away for good, ads from other countries (where Coke hasn’t pledged to stop advertising, by the way), become like collector’s items. Can you imagine people posting “bootleg” Chinese Coke advertisements on YouTube or Google Video? Maybe creative teenagers will produce their own homemade advertisements for Coke since there will be no more on TV! Craziness.

Then, they get on the charity bandwagon with all those crazy Hollywood stars. Damn. Can’t you imagine Pitt/Jolie, Harrison Ford, Sharon Stone, etc. etc. etc… in a huge Superbowl half-time commercial pimping Coke as the corporate savior of world poverty or something? A total turnaround from the rough human-rights record that the company tries to keep out of the limelight.

Damn. That would be awesome. And how do they cap it off?

At the end of the half-time show, on a huge Coke logo painted on the field, the CEO of Coke gives a van-load of cash to the head of the United Way or something, shakes his or her hand, and declares Coke advertising “gone forever”. The lights flick off, the stadium goes pitch black, and John Madden starts screaming, “what the heck is going on here Al? It’s pitch dark on the field. What is Coke up to?”

Then, the Coke logo starts to glow because it’s not just painted on, it’s fucking on fire. It burns like crazy, engulfing the stadium in a warm, Coke-friendly reddish glow. People are cheering. Madden starts choking Al Michaels in the booth and Chris Berman has a heart attack on the main set. And just when it reaches an intense blaze, it all poofs out of existence and plunges the stadium back into darkness. People are still cheering and drinking their free Cokes.

The lights come up, and there is nothing left on the field. Nada. Zip. The camera pans up to the jumbotron and we see it:

No more Coke advertising. It’s gone forever, and millions of people around the world rejoice.

Would it work? Maybe. Will it happen? Never.

Ah, at least I can dream. Geez, I’m thirsty.