I feel like I have to establish some sort of bona fides before I even start to tackle that Coca-Cola ad.
I am a Coke fan, alright? In my office fridge, I have more Coke than anything else, water included. I used to wake up and reach for a bottle of Coke first thing in the morning the way other people crave for a cuppa’ java. So yeah, I’m a Coke fan.
I’ve also been a big admirer of their adverts – from “I’d like to buy the world a Coke”
through to that Lilet ad in 1991
and all the way up to Nikki Gil’s Sana, with its theme of random acts of kindness.
Of course. special mention goes to “Ito ang Beat.”
Throughout all of those commercials, and despite the weirdness that was Aloc Acoc (the local ad campaign, not the Brand New song), I’ve always cheered for Coca-Cola.
But not today.
If you haven’t seen the latest Coca-Cola video, here it is:
You’re welcome.
Now, here’s why I don’t think it’s such a big deal.
Regardless of how it may seem to a people already pre-disposed to sympathy for the plight of OFWs, this ad does NOT have OFWs at its center. The point of this ad is not so much to show concern for Filipinos overseas as it is to show how great the Coca-Cola Company is. That’s an important point. This ad is not about Filipinos, or even about product; it is about the Corporation.
The Corporation that in 2010 netted US$35119.00 M, up 13.30% percent from the previous year, and which doubled in size. If you knew nothing else about Coca-Cola, you’d still have to wonder just how much of an impact sending three OFWs home made to its bottom line. We can all be grateful at the grand good fortune of the advert’s three stars, but must we really fawn over Coca-Cola for doing something that practically cost it nothing? It’s kinda like giving Superman a medal for stopping a bullet that didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of penetrating his thick skin anyway. There can be no heroism when there is no personal cost to the act.
What is so disturbing about this ad is because it contributes to the myth that Corporations are benevolent. They are nothing of the sort. Mega corporations like the Coca-Cola company are profit-driven and soul-less, despite p.r. campaigns to the contrary. What is even more disturbing is that we seem to be buying into that drivel hook, line, and sinker. Nothing wrong with loving the product, but I am not about to fall in love with the Corporation until they do something more substantial than looking under the sofa cushions for enough spare change to bring three Filipinos home.
I have to admit, I’m sounding pretty crabby right now; like some fringe activist who has gone and over-thought this thing. Maybe. But I distrust grassroots movements that aren’t grassroots movements. This Coca-Cola ad feels exactly like that. It preys on the soft-spot we all have for our long-suffering compatriots abroad; it takes advantage of their plight to promote a company that – apart from this one grand gesture – has not even truly improved their lives; and it manipulates us into feeling that everything will be alright with these families even after the cameras stop rolling – but will it?
Seriously. If a politician was viciously excoriated for using this tactic, why should we get all teary-eyed because a mega-corporation did it?
The previous adverts at least, were honest enough not to cloak their rampant commercialism with such blatant appeals to sentimentality and altruism. See it then, for what it is. Just an ultimately hollow Seasonal ad campaign; nothing more than a very creatively designed way of getting you to buy more Coke.
And p.s., it’s NOT viral.