Coke Designs a Friendly Bottle That Can Only Be Opened by Another Bottle

Via AdWeek

Social packaging helps college freshmen break the ice

Packaging that reinforces the brand promise.

No one is better than Coca-Cola at having all of its communications, down to the very packaging, embody the brand promise of happiness and sharing.

Leo Burnett in Colombia had the latest clever idea in that department. It dreamed up a design for Coke's plastic bottles featuring a cap that could only be opened when fit together with another bottle's cap and twisted. Thus, you have to pair off to be refreshed.

To show off the design, the brand found people in most desperate need of a little friendly conversation, who are also generally not opposed to pairing off: college freshmen at the beginning of the school year. It put a stash of the bottles on a campus. The students had to partner with someone if they wanted to open their Coke.

The idea is reminiscent of last year's sharable can, which split in half (created by Ogilvy & Mather France and Ogilvy Asia-Pacific), except this time the eager freshmen got to have a whole Coke—along with a small exchange that got the ball rolling.

 

Coca-Cola Turns Empty Bottles Into Paintbrushes, Lamps, Toys

In Asia, Coca-Cola is handing out unusual bottle caps that turn empty plastic bottles into totally new objects, like paintbrushes, water squirters, lamps and pencil sharpeners.

The beverage giant partnered with Ogilvy & Mather China on the "2nd Lives" campaign offering 16 screw-on caps in the brand's signatured red color. The upcycling campaign launched in Vietnam, where 40,000 free bottle caps will be distributed this year with soda purchases. It will roll out later in Thailand and Indonesia.

Relate

CokeBrand in Chi

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The project is one of Coca-Cola's many ways of addressing criticism about its reliance on plastic. In a much broader effort that spans multiple markets, Coca-Cola uses recyclable plastic bottles made partly from plants.

Coca-Cola and PepsiCo have faced attacks over their use of plastic bottles from SodaStream, which markets at-home soda-making machines. Coca-Cola is getting into the home beverage-making game by featuring its brands for use in Green Mountain's upcoming Keurig Cold machines, which, like SodaStream, eliminate the need for bottles or cans.

Credit: Ogilvy & Mather

 
Brand campaigns that encourage the reuse of packaging aren't new, of course. In 2011, Pringles launched a"Crunch Band" app encouraging people to turn their chip cans into music amps. And this past Halloween, Domino's helped people make jack-o'-lanterns out of pizza boxes.

But such campaigns are more unusual in Asia, where awareness of recycling and environmental issues isn't generally as high as in the West.

"Hacking" habits

On the other hand, it is common for people in Asia and the developing world to find creative ways to reuse bottles. (For example, people make cheap light bulbs by filling empty plastic bottles with water and bleach and embedding them into roofs to refract light indoors.)

"In Asia, traditionally people didn't like throwing things away, and I've seen ingenious things people have made with boxes, jars and all sorts of stuff," said Graham Fink, chief creative officer of Ogilvy & Mather China. "We've called it 'hacking habits.'"

With plastic products more and more common, "over the years that ingeniuity has perhaps been eroded, and it's nice to get back there," Mr. Fink said. He believes the "2nd Lives" project has potential well beyond Asia.

Bubbles = happiness

Happiness, of course

Leonardo O'Grady, Coke's ASEAN director for integrated marketing communications, said the bottle caps tapped into the company's global sustainability efforts but also into the brand theme of happiness.
"We have created fun tools with Coke bottle tops, bringing small moments of happiness into people's lives," he said in a statement.

Coke has been busy on the corporate social responsibility front in Asia, as of late. It just launched a socially responsible bottled-water brand in China to fund projects to bring clean drinking water to schoolchildren in rural China. The new brand's slogan is "Drink Good, Do Good, Feel Good."

Is Electronic Dance Music The Ticket To Reach Millennials?

via Forbes

Being in my forties, I can’t say I have a favorite DJ. I still think of music as something coming out of a guitar. But being in marketing, I can’t ignore the ferocious upswell in popularity of this little thing called “electronic dance music” (EDM). It’s the fastest growing genre of music, leaving hip-hop and rock in the dust. I had read that Millennials are driving the EDM surge and, let’s face it, Millennials are an important nut to crack from a marketing standpoint.

So I contacted an acquaintance, Joshua Erenstein, who I remembered was in the EDM space from his response to a previous Forbes article I wrote.

Joshua is the Co-founder and CEO of LEDM Group, a new agency of sorts organized to help brands navigate the EDM space. I sent a few questions to Joshua and his partner, Matthew Spitz, Co-founder and COO, to help me (and hopefully you) better understand the EDM phenomena and, more to the point, perhaps unlock a new channel to the elusive Millennial audience.

So here are my questions and LEDM’s responses.

What is “electronic dance music” and how is it different technically and musically from other genres?

LEDM: “Electronic dance music is a genre of music generally created on computers using production software and comprises many sub-genres ranging from the slow and soulful to the fast and heavy. Technically speaking, regarding creation of the music, other genres of music like hip-hop and rock use similar computer production software and studio tools to make segments of songs or tinker with their music whereas EDM producers use computers to create a song from inception to completion.
​
Although the term ‘DJ’ is usually the descriptor for EDM artists, the artists in this space are both DJs and producers. Due to the computer generation of music, the number of songs released by EDM acts in a given year tends to be much higher than the number released by artists in other genres. In their own mixes, both on the radio and live, EDM artists play each other’s music, thus filling these mixes with unexpected content and bringing novelty to performances not seen in other genres.

As for live performances, electronic dance music artists perform live by deejaying, playing their own songs and, again, the songs of other artists, at a range of events held at stadiums or clubs around the world. They are not playing an instrument or singing a song, but instead controlling the crowd’s emotions through expert song selection and sound mixing.”

Why is EDM so popular with Millennials?

LEDM: “Millennials needed a genre to call their own – rock and hip-hop have run their course. Electronic dance music provides a new sound, a fresh energy, and a clean space that needed the attention of the youth generation in order to bring it to prominence. Millennials grew up in the emerging age of social media and they live online, as does EDM, which enables Millennials to consume EDM content via media platforms they are already passionate about. Due to the computerized nature of electronic dance music, the easy ability to share new music from artist to fan and fan to fan is one of the main reasons EDM and Millennials go hand in hand.

Discovery is a key attribute Millennials possess and no genre fuels this more than EDM. Millennials crave life experiences on a global scale, and EDM culture nurtures that desire with its worldwide fan base, magical and spectacular festival moments, and the constant flow of content.”

How can brands participate in this movement?

LEDM: “Brands can participate in this movement by aligning with the EDM culture, not exploiting it. If brands can stir up the emotions naturally generated by EDM, then they have the best chance of succeeding. For instance, the campaign Heineken did with Armin van Buuren to encourage responsible drinking worked on multiple levels – it was organic, reflected a sensible alignment, and had a positive message. Other brands that gratuitously feature an EDM artist in a TV spot without any rhyme or reason, are missing the mark.

It’s important to understand that at the foundation of this movement is an underground fan base, who will not receive brand involvement well if it does not provide value to the culture. Aligning with the wrong artist or event and/or deploying a non-authentic creative strategy for a campaign could upset your current and future Millennial consumer.

Add to all that the fact this genre is still emerging, so the “business” of EDM is not as easy for brands to navigate as established genres. Which is really why we started LEDM.”

What is LEDM’s goal in the EDM space?

LEDM: “We exist to help brands navigate the EDM space while simultaneously protecting the culture we’ve personally been a part of for many years. When we fell in love with dance music over a dozen years ago, we knew we wanted to help the community mature and grow.

So our goal is to help brands strike the perfect balance between driving value to the EDM culture and value to the brand. Through our intimate knowledge of the industry and a proprietary artist/label/event evaluation framework, we give brands a customized EDM brand plan that naturally aligns a brand’s identity to this Millennial-centric culture.”

So there you have it.

Big thanks to LEDM’s Joshua and Matthew for the insights. I’m going to keep my eye on this movement. Electronic dance music might just be the “cheat code” we’ve been looking for to effectively reach Millennials. That is, if it’s done right.

Diet soda and weight loss: New study reignites debate

Via CBSNews

Diet beverages can help you lose weight, according to a new paper published today in the journal Obesity. The results contradict a number of other recent studies that indicated drinking diet soda may actually cause a person to gain weight.

The new study, which was fully funded by the American Beverage Association, looked at whether drinks such as Coke Zero, Diet Dr. Pepper and Diet Snapple might help people lose more weight than drinking water alone.

With a sample size of 303 people, researchers at University of Colorado Anschutz Health and Wellness Center in Aurora, Colo., and Temple University's Center for Obesity Research and Education in Philadelphia conducted the first ever prospective, randomized 12-week clinical trial to study the issue.

One half of the group was asked to drink at least 24 ounces of diet drinks per day, along with as much water as they wanted. People in the water group could drink 24 ounces of water each day but no soda; they were permitted to consume food products containing sugar substitutes, such as yogurt, gum, candy and ice cream, but could not add artificial sweeteners like Splenda or Equal to their coffee or tea.

All of the study participants followed the same behavioral weight loss treatment program.

The researchers found people in the diet soda group lost an average of 13 pounds over the 12-week time period, while those who didn't drink diet beverages only lost 9 pounds. This added up to 44 percent more weight loss among the diet soda drinkers than the control group.

Additionally, 64 percent of the diet soda drinkers lost a minimum of 5 percent of their body weight, compared with only 43 percent of the people who didn't drink diet soda.

The researchers also found people in the diet soda group reported feeling less hungry and showed improvements in serum levels of total cholesterol and low-density lipoproteins, or "bad" cholesterol. They also had a significant reduction in serum triglycerides. Both groups saw a reduction in waist circumference and blood pressure.

The results may be confusing to consumers, since previous studies seem to have found the opposite.

A 2012 report said that people who drank two or more diet sodas daily ended upgaining more inches around their waist. Research published earlier this year in American Journal of Public Health said that while artificial sweeteners may help cut down on one's sugar intake, they may prompt people to eat more calories overall.

Additionally, other studies have found artificial sweeteners in diet soda could be detrimental to one's long-term health. Recent research presented at the American College of Cardiology's 63rd Annual Scientific Session in Washington D.C. found women who consumed two or more diet drinks per day had a higher risk for heart attack, stroke and other cardiovascular problems.

However, Dr. Louis J. Aronne, a specialist in internal medicine and weight loss at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell disagrees with the recent diet soda backlash. He says consuming these beverages in moderation is safe and won't derail a weight loss plan.

"Studies in children have shown diet beverages prevent weight gain," he told CBS News in an email. "Evidence shows that they are clearly better than sweetened beverages."

EDM Biz Worth $6.2bn (Report)

Via Billboard

Electronic dance music is a $6.2 billion global industry, per a new report issued at the International Music Summit in Ibiza, Spain Wednesday (May 21).

As compiled by EDM trade group the Association for Electronic Music (AFEM), the figure includes revenue from festivals ($1.03 billion); Las Vegas club dates ($800 million) and other global club gigs ($2.4 billion); traditional recorded music sales ($800 million) and streaming/video services ($600 million); sales of DJ software and hardware ($360 million); DJ earnings from other ventures ($60 million) and value from other platforms like Soundcloud ($140 million). 

A graph from the 2014 IMS Business Report which estimated the worth of Electronic Music at $6.2 billion.

Elsewhere in IMS’ report, the organization points out the explosive growth of electronic/dance music sales in the U.S. (the only genre to post year-over-year sales gains in 2013, per Nielsen SoundScan) as well as DJs’ earnings, with the top 10 DJs on Forbes’ 2013 Electronic Cash Kings earning a combined $225 million, nearly double the $114 million earned by the top 10 in 2012.

Nile Rodgers To Be Honored With IMS Legends Award

And although Calvin Harris, Avicii and David Guetta have been big mainstream hitmakers as of late, young DJs like Hardwell, Zedd and Nicky Romero are showing the highest margins of growth in their social media "likes," each growing their followers by more than 350% apiece in 2013, according to data from Rankings EDM Monitor. Hardwell in particular quadrupled the fans he added per day year-over-year, comparing a three-month period from Feb. 5 to May 5 in 2013 to 2014, the period before and after the influential Ultra Music Festival. Per Music Metric data, Hardwell saw as many as 70,000 new fans on social-media a day during Ultra 2014.

Moby Interviews David Lynch on God, Maggots and Music at International Music Summit

Now in its sixth year, the IMS Summit in Ibiza will host guest speakers including Nile Rodgers, Steve Angello, Seymour Stein, Paul McGuinness, George Clinton and Miles Leonard.

FDA approves new artificial sweetener

Via CBS News

FDA.GOV

A new sugar substitute called advantame was approved on Monday by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The sixth artificial sweetener to receive the agency's blessing, advantame can be used in baked goods, soft drinks and other non-alcoholic beverages, chewing gum, candies, frostings, frozen desserts, gelatins and puddings, jams and jellies, processed fruits and fruit juices, toppings and syrups.

Advantame is a white powder that dissolves in water and remains stable even at higher temperatures, the FDA said in a news release. It can be used as both a tabletop sweetener and as an ingredient in cooking.

Sugar substitutes add few or no calories to foods, and generally do not raise blood sugar levels, the agency noted."Sugar substitutes are called 'high-intensity' because small amounts pack a large punch when it comes to sweetness," Captain Andrew Zajac, of the U.S. Public Health Service and director of the FDA's division of petition review, explained in the news release.

The agency's approval of advantame is based on the findings of 37 animal and human studies submitted by the maker of the new sugar substitute.

Advantame is chemically similar to aspartame (Equal), and certain people should avoid or limit their use of aspartame, the FDA noted. These people have a genetic disorder called phenylketonuria (PKU), which makes it difficult for them to metabolize phenylalanine, a component of both aspartame and advantame. Food with aspartame must include label information warning people with PKU about the presence of phenylalanine.

The FDA evaluated whether advantame should also carry alerts for people with PKU. Because advantame is much sweeter than aspartame, only a small amount is needed to achieve the same level of sweetness. As a result, foods that contain advantame do not need to include alerts for people with PKU, the FDA said.

The last high-intensity sweetener approved by the FDA was Neotame (brand name Newtame) in 2002. The other four sweeteners used in the United States are saccharin (Sweet'N Low), aspartame (Equal), acesulfame potassium (Sweet One), and sucralose (Splenda). Advantame does not yet have a brand name.

PEPSI TURNS CAMPAIGN ART INTO AN ACTUALLY WEARABLE FASHION COLLECTION

Via Fast Company

After partnering with six artists, six athletes and one world-class photog for it's Art of Football campaign, Pepsi has collaborated with six fashion brands to turn its gorgeous campaign art into a 60-piece capsule fashion collection. Brands regularly partner with artists to create custom art on their behalf. The partnerships are doubly beneficial: brands get to add a little bit of street cred to a given campaign, while artists benefit from corporate budgets to create work that often comes with reasonably free reign. The unfortunate bit of these collaborations, however, is that after the campaign is over, the artful assets generated in the process tend to fade away.

Pepsi has found a way to give extended life to the output from its artist collaborations for the Art of Football campaign. For that effort, Pepsi paired six artists with six world-class footballers. Famed photographer Danny Clinch photographed the athletes and the artists added a colorful layer to the portraits. The work was used in billboards and as the basis of an interactive commercial. In most instances, that would be the end of the road for the art, but Pepsi has now released a capsule collection of clothing, sporting goods, and accessories in partnership with six established and emerging brands that incorporates the Art of Football graphics.

The collection is being released May 20 at Bloomingdale’s and will appear at Paris boutique Colette and London retailer Liberty, as well as online. Pepsi partnered with Original Penguin, Bang & Olufsen’s B&O Play, Gents, Goodlife, Del Toro, and Shut to develop a collection of art-based fashions that includes everything from shirts and hoodies to hats and headphones, skateboards, and swim shorts. And the collection looks great--a far cry from heavily branded swag sitting at the bottom of many drawers.

Pepsi Chief Marketing Officer Kristin Patrick says the idea for the capsule collection was not premeditated but instead a response to the excitement of seeing the artist collaborations on billboards. “We ended up with these amazing works of art and we were so inspired by them we decided to take the designs and develop a line of apparel,” Patrick says. “We had been thinking about extending the brand into different cultural categories, so we started to think about whether we could play in fashion. When we talked to consumers about that ways that we could extend our brand, the first thing they said they’d love to receive from our brand is either entertainment content or apparel. Which was surprising because we thought the first thing they’d go with would be beverages. But the brand has such an equity in culture I think that’s why we have the consumers’ permission to go into these other business adjacencies.”
The billboards came out in December, so Pepsi quickly got the designers and retailers on board so they could pull off an entire 60-SKU collection at warp speed--the timeline is fast by fashion development standards. When it came to extrapolating elements of the art into the apparel pieces, the designers were given completely free reign to choose elements from whatever pieces of art they liked and apply them how they deemed most rad for the items they were designing.

“When we sat down with the designers we really started from a place of whatever we do, we want to create beautifully designed, high-quality products for the consumers. We really didn’t have any parameters,” says Patrick.

Despite the fact there was no overall direction in the product development, the collection hangs together well as a cohesive whole, largely a function of the thematically similar design elements, which are all red, white, and blue (basically the only immediate nod to the Pepsi connection).


“It was a cultural collision, a meshing of what was best for the artwork and what was best for the product categories,” Patrick says. “It’s amazing how from that out-of-home (campaign) we were able to develop this whole range of product category. Little things I didn’t catch when looking at the billboards, these creative people came in and created a whole new world from it.”

PepsiCo launches 'Spire' self-serve dispenser

via Fortune

Beverage maker seeks to expand its business and compete with Coke as U.S. soda sales lose their fizz.

FORTUNE -- PepsiCo. (PEP) has entered the make-it-yourself soda space with the announcement of Spire, a new machine that can stir up over 1,000 flavor combinations of carbonated beverages at locations such as restaurants and movie theaters.

The self-service equipment was unveiled at a National Restaurant Association Show, and there are already around 50 locations in the U.S. where customers can try out Spire, according to the company's website.

The machine, which is sleek and resembles an Apple (AAPL) product more than anything else, situates itself as a direct competitor to Coca-Cola's (KO) Freestyle.

The "first digital fountain that lets you personalize your favorite Pepsi brands," Spire aims to let customers "explore new taste territories from a sleek, digital touch screen," Pepsi said.

"Soda fountains in pharmacies and apothecaries, where this all started, were points of engagement where an amazing amount of creativity and innovation took place at the hands of the soda jerk. But somewhere along the line, what was an experience has turned into a transaction, and that's got to change," said Brad Jakeman, president of PepsiCo's global beverages group, to the New York Times.

Earlier in April, news that PepsiCo was in talks to buy stakes of SodaStream emerged, illustrating another way the beverage and food company has sought to expand its portfolio as sales for the soda industry continue to dip.

Earlier in the year, news broke that PepsiCo partnered with Bevyz, a European company that sells beverage systems for the home.

How About a Coca-Cola Manicure?

via ABC News

The Coca-Cola by OPI nail polish line.

Tina Trinh

Coca-Cola has a new line of products brewing, but you won't find them in the beverage aisle. The company's latest collaboration is with nail polish brand OPI, and the results are nine new shades inspired by the soda maker's signature drinks.

Need some classic red nails to complete that summer outfit? Try "Coca-Cola Red," a bright, cherry red that could easily switch places with the signature hue of Coca-Cola's famous logo. Purple more your style? "A Grape Affair," is an dark, eggplant shade inspired by Fanta Grape.

Like their real-life counterparts, the nail polish colors here lean towards the bold and bright. "Orange You Fantastic" is a sparkly, disco ball of a shade, filled with orange and gold glitter and inspired by Fanta Orange . . . definitely not for the faint-of-heart. Sprite has been translated into "Green on the Runway," a pearlized shade that simultaneously shifts between the lime green of Sprite's logo and a darker, camo shade of green.

It may seem like an oddball pairing, but the connection between Coca-Cola and beauty products is not unprecedented. Kate Dwyer, group director Worldwide Licensing for Coca-Cola, said that partnerships with nail polish and lipstick brands actually date back to the 1940s. More recent products include Bonne Bell's Coca-Cola flavored lip balms.

"Now that we've come out with this, I hear so many people saying, 'Oh wow, I was in a salon and somebody was saying, hey I want Coke Red' and they were trying to find what they thought was a comparable Coke-red polish. So I think it's something consumers were organically doing on their own, and it just allows us to meet some of those demands that already existed," noted Dwyer.

The OPI collaboration also gives Coca-Cola a presence in the recent nail art trend, which involves intricate and detailed patterns vs. a simple swath of color. By inserting itself into the scene, the beverage company is no doubt attempting to assert its cool factor among a younger, hipper crowd. "[The polishes] are a great connection point for consumers, [it] reminds you of the beverage and drives brand love. For anything that we do, we look at connecting with our consumers and what things will provoke reconsideration of our brands," said Dwyer.

Coca-Cola by OPI will be available this June in both nail lacquer and GelColor formulas. Individual shades will retail for $9 at professional salons such as Beauty Brands, Beauty First, Chatters, Dillard’s, JCP Salons, Pure Beauty, Regis, Trade Secret, ULTA and ULTA.com.

Pepsi vending machine rewards football skills with free drinks

Via Marketing Week

Pepsi has created an interactive vending machine that rewards fleet-footed fans with drinks in exchange for football tricks as part of its World Cup marketing campaign.

The #FutbolNow drinks dispenser uses motion-sensor technology to track the flicks and tricks (see above) of fans hoping for a free Pepsi. Players must keep a virtual ball in the air for 30-seconds as they progress through a series of skill challenges. Bonus time can be earned, while advanced players can push for “Half of Fame” status in each location. 

Challenges are issued by virtual versions of the brand’s star-studded football squad, which includes Netherlands striker Robin van Persie, Brazilian David Luiz and Argentina’s Lionel Messi.

Pepsi has experimented with interactive vending machines in the past, previously launching one that allowed shoppers to buy drinks for their friends remotely via Facebook in the UK.

The vending machine promotion is the latest from Pepsi’s World Cup marketing that began in January. The company has tapped a host of international music stars such as Timbaland and Rita Ora to create 11 tracks for its “Pepsi Beats of the Beautiful Game” album. Short films (see below), directed by filmmakers including Spike Lee and Idris Elba, back each song. The album’s debut track “Heroes”, by Janelle Monae, can be heard over its latest TV advert.