Since yesterday the Belgian consumers can taste a new low-calorie Cola. No, it’s not another line-extension of the Coca-Cola Company. In fact the company, producer or brand behind the new Cola is still a mystery.

For now the stunt exists out of handing out free samples of this new mystery Cola and convincing the consumers to cast their vote. They can express their opinion by sending “yes” or “no” to the free number 8955 or visiting their website www.likeitornot.be.

The mystery Cola is being distributed and promoted with a black truck and promo teams a cross Belgium.  The plan is to handout 75.000 off these mystery Cola’s. Yesterday the promo tour started in Antwerp, today it’s in Ghent. Hasselt and Brussels are the next stops for tomorrow. From there on the truck will visit Mechelen on Monday, Leuven on Tuesday and finally Kortrijk on Wednesday.

It’s stated by the law that every food fabricant is obliged to identify itself and to put a customerservicenumber on the packaging. But even this information didn’t help the journalists to figure out who is behind the stunt.

It seems we will have to wait at least till Wednesday to solve the mystery….or let the mystery solve itself.  Well, the stunt got me curious… let’s hope the unraveling will be as interesting as their stunt.

ps: I didn't got the chance to taste this new mystery Cola, but if you did...share your taste experience with us!

source: standaard.be

Get a bunch of celebrity artists, get them to sing a song for you, don’t mention your brand anywhere but make sure everyone knows it’s all about you. What you get is a branded song. Next you create a myspace page, a music video and you make a deal with MTV so they play your video clip. The end result is a great example of advertising by association. Or in other words “open happiness” by Coca-Cola.

open happiness video       open happiness myspace

Coca-cola has a long history in musical strategy. It all started with the “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing” Jingle that was part of the Coca-Cola classic campaign in 1971.

 You might also remember the “chihuahua” song. And let’s not forget the “holidays are coming” jingle that has practically become world heritage.

of course music strategies aren’t new. It was Aristotle who said that the eyes are the organs of temptation, but the ears are the organs of instruction. The ear sends a sound to the brain, setting in motion creative thought. One of the crucial tasks that the ear performs is to help us remember and recollect. So the basic logic of combining audio and video in advertising has been around since the early days of television.

But with “open happiness” Coke is taking music strategies and advertising by association to the next level. It’s not a commercial, there is no brand name. Everyone just knows it is about Coca-cola. And that has everything to do with the “happiness factory” campaign that has been going on for some time now.

So we all know the simple melody and now thanks to Coca-cola we will be humming it for days and days. But that is not all. the lyrics, the video, the message it is screaming Coca-Cola.

“C’mon and lift me up, it’s a brand new day, open up a lil’ happiness today, so I can be someone new,”

I feel like ripping open a can of Coke right now just writing this stuff.

So all this branding but without ever mentioning the brand in the song, showing one logo or can in the video. Well a round of applause for Coca-Cola. But then again I don’t think another brand could pull this off. You need to be very firmly present in the consumers mindset to think about creating associations without any brand representation. 

At Coca-Cola they seem to be loving this type of marketing and with good reason of course. It is creative, different and … fun. As marketing should always be. Give your consumers something, offer them a service. It is not about putting signs up on every corner. It is about being remembered.  By which I don’t mean that everyone should begin writing songs or we might go back to this: