Coke's Tongue-In-Cheek Ad Takes a Licking
Tongues have been wagging in the System1 office over Coke’s new ad, in which a young person takes a swig of the drink and finds herself whisked down her personal memory lane accompanied by a colossal animatronic tongue. Not the subtlest of ideas: the strategy in this case (“taste the feeling”) isn’t just showing, it’s dancing, nudging, munching popcorn, bungee jumping and shoving you down a mountain.
What do people think of it, though? Within a day of airing, the spot showed up on our Ad Ratings service, which tests every new ad on US and UK TV (in major categories) to predict short- and long-term effectiveness.
Every ad on Ad Ratings gets a Star Rating representing the potential of the creative to amplify spend and drive long-term growth. It runs from 5-Stars (which is exceptional but very rare) down to 1-Star (which is poor but very common).
Coke’s giant tongue lands in the middle of the 1-Star range – this is not an ad people respond to well. In the multi-coloured chart above – tracking second-by-second response – you can see why. That bright red band is Disgust, running at very high levels for a consumer ad. The darker red band above it is Contempt – never a healthy response. For those who dislike the ad, we see initial Disgust resolve into Contempt as the spot goes on.
Basically, a lot of people think a giant animated tongue is gross. Who knew? Some people like it too, of course – but that light green Happiness band dwindles over the course of the ad.
On long-term effects, then, Coke’s weird ad takes a licking. But there is a silver lining. On our short-term metric, Spike, the ad scores extremely well. It’ll get noticed, talked about, and will drive sales – but in the longer-term, a lot of people who taste this feeling will spit it right back out.
