‘Why Don’t You Just Coates It?’: How ABEL Turned a 140-Year-Old Brand Into a Verb

ABEL’s recent campaign for Coates, 'Why don’t you just Coates it?', features a catchy jingle from Sonar and whimsical illustrations by ABEL co-founder Simon Fowler, aiming to refresh the brand and turn 'Coates' into a verb synonymous with reliable solutions.

Speaking to LBB, Simon explained how the jingle was strategically crafted with Sonar to make Coates synonymous with end-to-end solutions, noting the need for a “whistle-able way for Coates to be on every job-site in the country."

He also discusses the personality-driven equipment illustrations, detailed character backstories, and unexpected creative twists that brought the campaign to life.

Sonar executive producer Sophie Haydon speaks about the collaborative process of creating a distinct sonic brand stressing the importance of aligning creative visions and exploring diverse musical approaches.

LBB> What was the inspiration behind the jingle, its melody and lyrics, and how did you ensure it would be memorable?

Simon> Historically, jingles have been written for FMCG [fast-moving customer goods] brands. Sure, there’s the odd roofing company or garage door – but mostly nappies, kitchen cleaners, and food. Especially food.

With a jingle, the answer has a way of always being there, simple, and hard to forget. A lot of the time, you can hear the strategy in a jingle. So the inspiration behind us writing one was just that – strategic.

As a company, Coates needed to become synonymous with end-to-end solutions on even the most technically challenging projects. With our audience being incredibly hard to reach, we needed a whistle-able way for Coates to be on every site in the country.

Partnering with Sonar on this one was a no-brainer - they took our detailed brief and delivered a simple, catchy tune that hit all the right notes.

Sophie> Abel and Coates came to us to create a new sonic brand. Our process always begins with a sonic brand workshop, where we collaborate with the client and agency to define the brand’s sound. This step is essential; it aligns all partners and sets up the project for success. It gives us the opportunity to deep dive on all aspects of the client’s brand, vision and key brand pillars, which is where the inspiration for the music track and messaging and lyrics really begins.

From the outset, we aimed to create something rousing and anthemic. But most of all, it needed a very distinct sound and character to match the bold and striking rebranding ABEL created.

LBB> Turning "Coates" into a verb is a bold move – was there any hesitation about this approach, and how did you test its effectiveness?

Simon> Agree but with no hesitation. It was a strategic decision that lyrically worked perfectly within the melody.

For years, Coates has been known as Coates Hire. One of the key goals of this campaign was to highlight the full scope of the Coates' offering – end-to-end solutions. Turning "Coates" into a verb was a great way to achieve this.

As for testing its effectiveness? Time will tell, but some things you just trust your gut on.

Through our collective experience and many conversations with all the collaborators, we were confident this was the right decision for the brand. Plus, ask anyone on this project (or their preschool kids), and they’ll be singing and humming the jingle after hearing it just once.

LBB> Simon, your original illustrations play a big role in the campaign – what was the creative process in bringing these characters to life, and did any particular designs prove challenging?

Simon> Stepping in to do the illustrations was both a huge act of trust from the Coates team and a perfect example of how ABEL operates as a creative agency.

At ABEL, we’re all about enablement—‘together we’re ABEL’—supporting our partners and people in many ways. One of our core values is encouraging everyone to embrace different types of creativity in and outside of the industry. So when the opportunity arose to ask ourselves, “Can we tackle this part of the project?” the answer was yes.

Like any other creative brief, it started with a collaborative conversation and coming together to create something new and different. Keeping it in-house gave us more flexibility and control – but from there, it was a very fluid process between ABEL, Photoplay, and Coates – with the initial character design focused on finding the right construction equipment, personalities, and style as we started to build the illustrative craft.

Once motion and stills were locked, it was an ‘all hands on deck’ situation. While I illustrated final vectors over the final film and stills, ABEL’s Phillip Robbie acted as technical illustration support and burned the midnight oil on a dozen mouth shapes for each character; Jono Chong provided countless rounds of animation with each finished character and the rest of the team with eagle eyes on every other post-production detail.

All while in pre-production for the shoot and post for the jingle – to say there were many moving parts would be an understatement.

Here’s a doodle I did over Stef Smith’s treatment during a call with her and the team:

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LBB> The campaign blends live action and animation – how did you decide on this mix, and what challenges did it present during production?

Simon> Once we locked in 70% of the jingle structure, the next step was concepting the launch. Bringing the Coates brand personality to life through its equipment, combined with the positive energy of our jingle, was the perfect way to showcase the feeling of being ‘equipped for anything’ with Coates.

Executing it was a whole different challenge. Anyone who's worked with animation over live-action knows how complex it can be. Even the smallest change in camera movement, angle, or equipment in-frame can have a flow-on effect on the characters and their integration in the post.

LBB> The equipment is portrayed as a ‘motley crew’ with distinct personalities – what was the thinking behind this characterisation, and do any of them have hidden backstories?

Simon> Coates is Australia’s largest equipment hire and solutions provider, with a community that's incredibly diverse and growing, thanks to their commitment to a fair and inclusive culture. This served as the inspiration for our brief.

Like every part of this project, the work became a sum of its parts - and a sum of its people. A ‘motley crew’ of our own all contributed to, or had a story behind, each character - even the ones that didn’t make the final cut. Stef was incredible, she wrote backstories for each character in her treatment, really bringing them to life.

This genuine approach to character development came in handy when creating social executions like the ones below, where we only used the sting at the end.

LBB> What was that creative process like creating the jingle, and were there any unexpected twists or challenges in getting the final version just right?

Simon> Full of reviews, full of revisions, full of trusting the process. If you ask Sonar, we probably rewrote and resung that thing 100 times.

A nerve-wracking moment: hearing the jingle for the first time with the characters, especially since we had chosen them to align with the illustrations.

Unexpected twist: We couldn’t quite match the vocals of our original voice, so Josh from Sonar ended up being the voice throughout -- and also the voice of the hardhat.

It was amazing hearing all the layers come together, with talented voices giving it their all, whether they were singers or not.

Sophie> It's not often these projects run as smoothly as this one. Coates fully backed ABEL’s creative vision, and the collaboration was truly enjoyable from the onset.

Creatively, we start by casting the net wide, we put the hitmakers in the studio to work.

We explored a range of genres, lyrical styles, and vocalists. Our first pass included eight different approaches, and from here, we had two very clear front runners that we worked to refine to our new track and mnemonic.

Often, the creative process can spiral into over-refinement, leading to dilution of the original idea. Fortunately, in this case, everyone recognised the essence of the track early on, allowing us to fine-tune it together without losing its impact.