Coca-Cola Drips Charisma

One of the reasons Coca-Cola is so successful is that it knows how to play the part of the charismatic brand.

Here’s a look at Coca-Cola spreading some joy and happiness at a college campus. Uh, yeah… this is brilliant.

Is your brand charismatic? No? Then I hate to break it to you, Sparky, but you’re just plain and dull. So here’s what you need to do: start thinking about how you can differentiate yourself AND ooze charisma. Both are important. And if you can get it right, you just might end up surprising and delighting your customers.

The New Coke Creatures: Cute (Brand Champ) or Creepy (Brand Chump)?

Over the last two weeks in Brand Champ or Chump, we’ve considered environmental spots from Honda and Toyota. Each was crowned as a Brand Champ.

This week, we’re changing it up and featuring the new Coke Creatures campaign.

In this spot, we see a mysterious man push a large box up to the top of a hill. He opens the box, which turns out to be an organ with little creatures inside.

The man then begins playing the keyboard. With each hit of a key, a drop of Coke falls into the creature’s mouths. They begin to sing “Yeah Yeah Yeah” and “La La La” (a track written and produced by electro superstar Calvin Harris). The fun tune soon attracts a crowd of young people. All of the dancing sprouts Coke bottles from the grass.

I’m not sure what to make of this spot, which is part of Coke’s new Open Happiness platform.

I have to admit: the track grew on me after listening to it several times. In fact, it’s in my head right now. It’s annoyingly happy and upbeat.

The creatures aren’t particularly cute to me. I’m reminded of a strange combination between Ewoks and Gremlins. One of them reminds me of the legendary Wookiee Chewbacca from Star Wars.

Coke’s gone out of its way to breathe life into these creatures. You can find them on Facebook, Flickr, and of course they have their very own site: www.cokecreatures.com.

When young people start running up the hill to join in on the fun, I was reminded of Coke’s much-loved “Hilltop” commercial, which most of you will remember for the song I’d like to Buy the World a Coke.

The goal is the same: make people happy. But while the classic piece is gloriously inspirational, the new Coke Creatures bit is just plain silly. Or is it gloriously silly?

Do you think this piece can help Coke build positive feelings around the brand?

Watch it for yourself and let me know what you think we have here:

1. A brand champ?
2. A brand chump?
3. Somewhere in between?