Chorlton Media Box: Year 11 Exam Topics - Advertising: Coke Zero and Diet Coke

Advertising and Marketing - Audiences. The Coke Zero/Diet Coke thing.

...it's all in the acesulfame potassium. Ace-K, as it's known in the sweetening business, is an artificial sweetener found in Coke Zero, but not in Diet Coke, which is only sweetened with aspartame. And that's the difference, technically. A little variation in taste (due to the sweetener) and actually a tiny difference in the calories (Coke Zero has a little bit less) and you've got 2 drinks for the price of making one, and a diet drink without the word 'diet' - a whole new marketing possibility.

According to studies, men are reluctant to buy diet drinks, which are traditionally marketed at women and have all the associated diet and lifestyle connotations: something the marketers felt wasn't particularly a male thing. Men, though, were increasingly health-conscious; toning and working out in the gym, running and keeping fit, and needed an alternative to 'girly' Diet Coke or the sugar-loaded regular version.

Pepsi had actually stolen a march on Coke with Pepsi Max, launched in Europe in 1993, and aimed at an active, male market (sponsoring the rollercoaster at Blackpool was a good move in terms of reaching out to its target audience) but it was unavailable in the USA because of licensing problems over the ingredients, and so the Coca-Cola company had the opportunity to hit the global market with the same product, assuming that it passed food safety standards at home and abroad. Coke Zero was introduced to a global market in 2006.

Coke Zero advertising: Our Hero/A taste of life as it should be.

This advertising campaign is squarely aimed at a 20-something male audience (with a bit of movement either side of this demographic) through the linked strands of sex, action and explosions. Hitting the love/belonging and esteem needs on Maslow's Triangle (Hierarchy of Needs - see elsewhere on this blog) the ads present 'our hero' in a range of sticky situations (trapped in his girlfriend's apartment with her parents at the door, in a supermarket bumping into his ex and her massive new man, and in a roadside diner dealing with the tricky issue of how to manage the break-up) In each case the problem in the narrative is resolved thanks to Coke Zero: a swig of the cold, zero-sugar delight and the problem is tackled: SWAT teams, exotic new girlfriends, helicopters, pole dancers and the right words all swing into action once Coke Zero has been put into the mix. It is quite a catalyst.

Remember Todorov's theory of narrative from Year 10?

TODOROV’S THEORY – Todorov proposed a basic structure for all narratives. He stated that films and programmes begin with an equilibrium, a calm period. Then agents of disruption cause disequilibrium, a period of unsettlement and disquiet. This is then followed by a renewed state of peace and harmony for the protagonists and a new equilibrium brings the chaos to an end. The simplest form of narrative (sometimes referred to as ‘Classic’ or ‘Hollywood’ narrative).

Well, this fits in quite nicely, and you can apply this thinking to these ads. In each one, the equilibrium is established at the start of the advert, so we know where the ad is staring from and what the situation is. In 'The Morning After' we see 'our hero' in bed with an attractive female, who gets out of bed looking spectacularly glamorous, and goes off for a shower, leaving 'our hero' in bed and with the apartment to himself. This equilibrium is interrupted by a knock on the door and the arrival of 'the parents'. At a loss, and not wanting to be caught there by an increasingly angry father, he turns to Coke Zero for the answer, and drinking from the fortunately positioned bottle in the girl's fridge, sparks the reaction that restores the equilibruim through the intervention of a SWAT team complete with bed making guns and dog silencers! A new equilibrium is established as 'our hero' is swept away in the by a helicopters as huge fireballs explode into the sky.

The mise-en-scene in the opening is important for the message for the message of the advet. The room is messy, with clothes and cushions thrown around everywhere (the results of 'the night before' as suggested by 'the morning after' title of the text?) and plates and food containers and bottles and glasses all round. This sets the narrative up for the audience, and gives a lot of detail in the first ten seconds that place the action and establish the situation.

'Our Hero' is a 20-something man, representative of the target audience, (who are supposed to see themselves reflected here and identify with his situation) waking up in bed with an attractive woman, feeling pleased with himself and naturally drawn to the Coke Zero in the fridge. He is fit looking, (semi-clothed/in his vest) healthy and with just enough designer stubble to make it clear that he's not completely clean cut and perfect. In each of the adverts in this campaign, 'our hero' looks similar - a white male, 20-someting, with a little bit of stubble and messy dark hair, who is drawn like magic to the sugar-free powers of Coke Zero.

The Coke Zero effect is the catalyst that changes a difficult situation into one that can be managed by a swig of Coke Zero. In each advert the narrative pauses while we see the drink travelling into the body, into the bloodstream and sparking of a chain of internal combustions and explosions that shake the central character's world. This sequence is punctuated by a dramatic voiceover and captions explaining how Coke Zero presents 'Life As It Should Be', using film stock and skewed effects to make it clear that Coke Zero has ripped up the old story (film) and created something new, something dramatic, and something designed to appeal to men. 'Our Hero' wins, either escaping the tricky situation or having it change to his favour in front of him, because he has had a sip of a sugar-free drink. Exciting stuff!

There is nothing in the advertisements that promotes the health qualities of this drink, and in no way is it marketed as a diet product. Coke Zero will change your world, rescue you, make you feel good, special and wanted, and make spectacular women (including your ex) offer you no-strings sex. You could argue that this is a fairy simple way of advertising, but mix this up with high budget production and Hollywood style effects, and your audience sit up and take notice. Coke Zero sales have increased significantly (49 percent in 2008) as a result of some clever marketing and hitting the right audience.

This all contrasts nicely, then, with

Diet Coke advertising: 11:30/Diet Coke break

What we've actually studied in lessons is a hybrid of the original 1990s '11:30' Diet Coke ad and the updated version made for a more modern audience.

If the Coke Zero advertisements are aimed at men, then the Diet Coke ads are their polar opposites, aimed clearly and specifically at women. The narratives of the three adverts are very similar: women working in exclusively women-only environments (very empowering - they're not just seen as secretaries, and very different to the stay at home women represented in the Persil ads we have looked at) take a break at a particular time to enjoy and objectify the men on offer to them. From their (and the advertiser's) point of view, the men are there to be looked at and enjoyed, as a break from the cut and thrust of the working day.

The 1990s ad has a fairly straightforward narrative: women working in an office let each other know that it is the crucial time of the day: 11:30. This, however, is not time for an executive meeting, or a gossip session, or even a drinks break of their own to ease the stress of the morning. No, in this case 11:30 is the time the builders working outside take a break, and one in particular (and we are led to assume that this is a fairly regular thing) strips off his t-shirt to enjoy the cooling refreshment that is Diet Coke while the women look on, pressed against the window a few floors up, getting steamier by the minute. The music ('I Just Wanna Make Love to You' by Etta James) played over the video track is not particularly subtle, and gives the viewer a clear indication of how all of these women feel about the diet fizz swigging construction worker lingering over his break time refreshment. Interestingly the women themselves aren't seen enjoying Diet Coke - they enjoy it vicariously, which means through someone else, in this case the exhibitionist builder.

The target audience for this advert are supposed to see themselves in the representations of the working women on the screen - women with important jobs who aren't afraid to enjoy the physical appearance of the object of their collective desires...in the 1990s ad the man is purely objectified - there's no interaction with him, and we don't even know for certain if he knows he is being watched so closely!

In the 2008 update of this advert the same backing track is used, and the message is the same, but the women are much more in control of the situations they create to gaze longingly at whatever Diet Coke guy is featured. In 'Lift' the three women use the opportunity of a Diet Coke break (this time they actually get to drink it) to engineer a situation where, by stopping the lift and getting themselves stuck, they get to have a desirable engineer descend from the roof in front of their very eyes. They have made this happen - they are in charge of the situation and by pressing a button can make a man magically appear!

As repairman descends (dressed in jeans and a white t-shirt, just enough stubble and a hint of bare skin above his waistband) the camera lingers on the three women in the lift as they suggestively bite lips, twist hair, run their fingers over their cans of Diet Coke and show quite clearly that they're enjoying the situation they've engineered for themselves. As the lift stops and they step out they put their empty cans in a bin containing nothing but empty cans, suggesting that this kind of Diet Coke lift action is not a one-off. This ad is obviously more subtle than the in-your-face punchiness of the Coke Zero ads, and doesn't suggest that the drink will get you the man, only get you the man to look at.

The final Diet Coke ad has the same sort of message and structure - the impending arrival of the Diet Coke delivery guy (working women can't exist without it) sends the office into a state of alert: buttons are undone, cleavage plumped up, legs extended, skirts shortened and photos of husbands unsubtly flipped face down as the jeans and white t-shirted delivery guy, hot and sweaty because of the hard manual task he has (carrying a couple of crates of Diet Coke up in a lift!) comes into the office, is stared at and lusted over by an all-woman office with electricity in the air, and, after he drains his can, one woman, obviously impressed, even runs her finger up and around the can where Diet Coke guy has been.

There is a sense of humour running through the ads: the delivery guy laughs when he realises just how much he is the centre of attention, and I'm sure that the intention of the adverts wasn't to suggest that no matter how powerful a woman's job, and how impressive her office is, a Diet Coke guy can still make her go weak at the knees. Remember, though, that the uses and gratifications theory suggests that not only can audiences choose how they receive a text, they can also choose what to make of it, and it is possible to read the advert this way.

Even though we're dealing with a couple of soft drinks, essentially the same, the way that they have been packaged, branded and marketed tells us a lot about the target audience the advertisers have focussed on. Sex still sells, in many different ways, and as Media students it's importance to notice the differences in how it does, depending on who you're selling to.

Mr G.