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.