This dispatch comes to you from vacation so it’s brief. I’ve been on the road, bouncing between time zones and my head’s all over the place so pardon the sparseness of this installment and the grammatical and spelling errors. Honestly, as a novice writer it’s hard for me to write these things from the stability of my daily routine, let alone from out of a suitcase.
Coke at Cannes
Coke recently took home the Grand Prix for Print and Publishing from Cannes festival of creativity (the biggest advertising awards ceremony of the year for you lucky folks who’ve never heard of it) for their Recycle-Me print campaign. It’s great, I liked it - when I saw it in the wild I thought it was striking, smart and it took risks with an iconic brand which I always get a kick out of.
On first glance it begged the question: is print advertising at the forefront of originality and innovation? In a content saturated world, is the razors edge found on paper? Does print cut through or does print simply have to be good enough to cut through?
In the case of Coke’s ads, they literally trashed their most recognizable asset - a disruptive act in its own right - within a simple and bold design system. Even after controversially churning it up, the coke logo is unmistakable; a flex that honestly distracts from the recycling message the campaign was meant to promote (it’s worth mentioning here that crushed cans are actually harder to recycle so please don’t do that). To be honest, although it’s a fun claim to make, I can’t really spot the innovation - this type of playful, cheekiness is a hallmark of a good print ad. But maybe it’s seeing this classic play still being deployed in a marketing landscape that seems afraid of its own shadow that is the disruptive part? So many tried and true advertising creative practices have been shunned in favor of Data Über Alles at the expense of actual effectiveness. Ironically, the doomsayers criticizing Coke for fucking with their precious logo are right in many ways - if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Why it worked:
It’s Bold: Coke’s logo isn’t the only stand out COKE AF branding. That red and those whisps of white taste like coke and when your secondary brand assets do almost as much work as your primary, then getting weird with it is sometimes the best thing you can do. (Shout out Absolut).
It’s Smart: It keeps you engaged whilst you figure out if you’re having a stroke. The campaign message sinks in as you untangle what it is you’re seeing and once you finally get your bearings, it lands the message with a second punch.
It’s Simple: when there’s so much visual chaos all around us, the vastness of the flat red is immediately arresting. Additionally, the void demands respect, on the verge of the sublime - at once calming and overpowering.
When you have a brand as big and powerful as coke, a pure brand play with basically nothing else added can be a huge hit - a proven fact by their win this year*. So well done to the one of the worlds Lindy-est brands and their dinosaur of an agency. If they can’t bang out a corker of a print ad then there’s no hope for the industry - even if that ad is a cynically self serving marketing tool from one of the world’s biggest plastic producers1 in disguise as an environmental campaign.
Printed Matters
Print is a slow medium so it makes a fantastic vehicle for thoughtful and smart creative. It’s okay if theres a lapse between first contact and understanding. Sometimes the slow burn is what makes the ad so good. In a time where “optimized best practices”2 are ruining creativity and variety in video and digital advertising perhaps print is a safe haven for good ideas.
The Spread: Light
Look to the slow, still, weighty printed page for originality that goes against the video grain.
More Emulsion
Short anecdotes from this trip:
Foxes poo on human things. Cant find a link but know that it’s true.
Reminder: American pints are 2 floz smaller than proper facken pints.
Shocking revelation from a park denying ex-Londoner: London’s green spaces are incredible and abundant.
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This has been the Mayonnaise Dispatch: LIGHT HOLIDAY EDITION, thanks for reading. What did you think? Let me know in the comments or tell me on Discord because it’s your feedback that helps improve this project. If you liked what you read, consider sharing the substack to people you think might like it too.
The Coca-Cola Company are responsible for more than half of the plastic pollution found across the globe
logos must show up within the first 2 seconds of an ad, text can’t cover more than 20% of the frame, keep 3-5 seconds at the end of your already short video for logos and lock ups, burn in subtitles for sound off comprehension