How AI Is Giving Coke Zero Sugar a Voice of Its Own

Coca-Cola’s ‘Best Coke Ever?’ campaign is back and this year it’s the most innovative and experimental yet. From AI-generated lettering designed to let the product speak for itself, a playful TikTok filter and singing challenge and a funky QR-operated vending machine, this year the brand is going all out to encourage people to try the drink.

The ‘Best Coke Ever?’ strategy is all about championing the taste of Coke Zero Sugar to encourage people to give it a go. Oana Vlad, senior director of global strategy for The Coca-Cola Company says that strategy has been really working for Coke Zero Sugar since its launch in 2021.

“It’s really centred on trial and it’s leveraging, of course, the emphasis on great taste to drive trial and that’s been successful,” says Oana. “So we are seeing trial increase, which is great. The other piece is we feel like it’s a broad enough platform to allow for many different types of experiences.”

This year the brief to Open X, WPP’s bespoke agency that focuses on all things Coca-Cola, was to continue to focus on encouraging people to trial the production - but to do so in an unexpected way. “So what’s really unexpected about this year is that we’re leaning on this insight that Coke Zero Sugar has been trying to talk to us all along, we just haven’t seen it,” explains Oana. “We haven’t looked in the right places. We haven’t heard it the right way. So now, instead of inviting others, including us marketers, to describe the great Coke taste, why not just let Coke Zero Sugar speak for itself?”

In the campaign’s visual imagery, that idea is expressed through text that looks like it has naturally coalesced in the condensation, bubbles and fizz. But to ensure that these words really did come from the product and were not imposed by marketers and designers putting ‘words in its mouth’, so to speak, the team turned to technology. The lettering on the images has been created by an AI that’s been trained on imagery of Coke Zero Sugar - thousands upon thousands of images of effervescence, Coke Zero Sugar packaging and liquid.

Leading the charge within the Open X team was lead partner AKQA, who also worked with Coca-Cola’s internal teams building expertise in AI.

“What I would say on behalf of the network teams is that what AI allows us to do is just open up the universe of experiences that we can create. For example, through the use of AI, we were able to reveal this alphabet or typography in a very authentic way to the product versus saying that we potentially manufactured it or created it ourselves. So, that allowed us to go deeper into the authentic nature of the concept of taste speaking for itself, because actually those letters have been there all along.”

This isn’t the first time that any brand in The Coca-Cola Company’s stable has embraced artificial intelligence - indeed they recently used AI to create a limited edition product called Y3000, imagining what the future might taste like. https://www.coca-colacompany.com/media-center/coca-cola-creations-imagines-year-3000-futuristic-flavor-ai-powered-experience

For Oana, AI is proving to have fascinating applications in the marketing space. “I won’t predict the future but I can tell you some of the areas of interest for us where we’re already playing and we see great potential. The first is in the depth and the quality of insights. Through AI, we’re able to get better insights and to get insights much faster, which ultimately allows us to be closer to the consumer, and be much more people-centric,” she says. 

“The second is a lot of what we’re discussing here, which is using AI as a tool in the creative toolbox, oftentimes in partnership with ‘HI’ [human intelligence] to deliver really unique experiences in the digital space or to level up the creativity as well. The third win, which I think you saw on a more experimental scale through the launch of Coca-Cola Y3000, is even in product development, where AI played a role. So I think those three spaces are really interesting for us. But again, we view AI more as a tool that can expand our capabilities and that can be leveraged in collaboration with ‘HI’!”

Oana’s team was determined that this year’s campaign would be the most surprising and digital-forward yet. Aside from the innovative AI execution, there are a plethora of other activations, including a TikTok filter whereby they’re inviting people to become the voice of the product, overlaying their mouth on the Coke Zero Sugar Bottle, where they sing the campaign song, ‘It’s Gotta Be Me’. While there is a TV element to the campaign, this campaign, like most Coca-Cola campaigns, is skewing towards digital versus traditional media.

Finally, because of the ‘trial’ imperative of the campaign, there’s also a physical experiential thread to the campaign too. They’ll be launching ‘almost vintage-looking’ mobile vending machines that will be anchored on miniature trucks and that will be unlockable via a QR code. Punters will not only be able to get a hold of the Coke Zero Sugar product, but will also get access to various experiences that are part of the campaign too.

There’s a thread of humour weaving together the campaign, from the comedic TV spots to the playfully silly TikTok filter. According to Oana, that’s come about by combining Coca-Cola’s trademark pep with the innate silliness of the idea.

“It’s one of the most optimistic and positive brands in the world. So that’s going to be the North Star to everything that we do. And in this case, we also have a little bit of a cheeky, absurd situation of a product speaking. So combining the Coke values with the concept itself, I think, led to some executions where we were having fun,” says Oana, reflecting on the singing TikTok challenge, the videos of bottles chatting to each other and content that makes full, ludicrous use of the closed captions to describe the liquid in the most minute detail.  “I think it’s a combination of what the Coca-Cola brand is and then what this particular idea is… Real magic is our global philosophy for everything Coca-Cola, and we feel like this also embodies our real magic philosophy very well.”

For Oana, this project has been a particularly enjoyable one, especiallyduring the creative process and craft, the shooting of the liquid and the fun of creating a giant bottle.

“A lot of the fun conversations were in the craft. And then, of course, [there were] a lot of conversations around how we can continue to experiment and push the marketing transformation agenda. So, go beyond the traditional and really bring new and exciting ways for people to engage with us in both the digital space, but also, physically.”

As a marketer, the opportunity to get hands on and really explore the possibilities offered up by this rapidly evolving technology is one that Oana relishes. “The Coke trademark is 138 years young and Coke Zero Sugar is almost 20 years, and it’s exciting to see a brand with this heritage really experiment and learn as we go, improve as we go.”