The ad crept up on you in Saturday’s Good Weekend magazine. The kind of thing you read in a café on your day off, when your guard is down.
But even so it stuck out - actor Kerry Armstrong telling us that “as a mum” Coke was this great stuff that there were all these terrible myths about. That, in fact, it doesn’t rot your teeth, make you fat and isn’t full of either cocaine, caffeine or preservatives.
Coke has been attacked for this campaign by dentists and parents groups, but I’m not annoyed - I just think it’s just odd. And it’s even more odd that Kerry Armstrong would want anything to do with it.
Why would they bother? They have enormous market share – every suburban milk bar going back generations have their signage provided courtesy of the company. The world over every restaurant, bar, bodega or canteena has their Coke-provided drinks fridge stuffed with their sticky black fluid.
Every pub has a gun pre-loaded with the stuff to shoot into punters’ booze.
And the incidental advertising is massive – only yesterday on the front page of the Herald there was a picture of a Coke bottle behind that couple who just had a baby in Royal North Shore hospital. I know, it’s sad, I notice such things.
Now Australians are the biggest consumers per capita of Coke in the world. So the question has to be asked – how much more do you want us to drink?
What’s the goal? A 10% increase? A 20% increase? Should we use it to bathe with or to brush our teeth?
What I’m saying is – haven’t they well and truly cornered the market?
Why release a whole lot of cringeworthy ads with embarrassing spin talk and weasel words?
Dumb stuff like “My boys now call me Mum, the Myth Buster!’ and bumf like “At Coca-Cola we help people make informed choices about what’s right for them depending on their individual needs.”
I mean McDonald’s did the same thing – but at least they spent some money to at least give us the option to buy a salad.
But all Coke have done is bought out Kerry Armstrong – who seemed all too willing to sell.
Armstrong has always been a bit kooky, but she may have proved it beyond doubt with this move.
And as for this “as a mum” line – first it was brandpower, washing powders, and now it’s Coke.
Can people stop referencing their stretch marks when they want to spruik a product?
Otherwise I’ll be forced to preface everything with “As a selfish single trendoid who lives in a five bedroom share-house in Newtown…” Seriously mums of Australia – take your $1000 a kid you just got from the PM and quit while while you’re ahead.
Anyway, off that tangent.
Perhaps, Coke would be better off starting some new myths. Like that it cures cancer, can be used in footbaths to ward off tinea, or it can help with chafe. That would be a fun viral marketing campaign.
Coke, if you have some extra marketing dosh why not send a few anonymous cheques to the local public school or hospital.
But, spare us the sugar coat on your already saccharine black gold.
* I would have loved to have talked to Coke… but they won’t return my calls.
