America the Beautiful Advertisement

America the Beautiful Advertisement
Brand	Coca Cola
Nation	United States
Released	February 2014
Product Market	Soft Drinks
Advertising Agency	Wieden + Kennedy
Production Agency	Skunk
Art Director	John Hillcoat
Producer	Julia Lafferty
Editor	Angus Wall
Awards	AICP SHOW 2014

It's Beautiful Advertisement

Introduction

"It’s beautiful“ is an American commercial by Coca Cola. It is a production of American Wieden + Kennedy advertising agency headquartered in Portland, Skunk production company based in Los Angeles, producer Julia Lafferty and art director John Hillcoat and it first aired on February, 2nd for the Super Bowl XVLII final. The 60 seconds commercial uses a modified version of the American patriotic song "America is beautiful“ by Katharine Lee Barthes sung by young women and shows different scenes of life in America starring American people with different cultural backgrounds. 

The commercial reached out 111.5 million people in the USA and was both appreciated and criticized by the audience. However, despite many critiques, Coca Cola decided to re-air a longer version of the same commercial for the opening ceremonies of the 2014 Winter Olympics and 2016 Summer Olympics as well as this year‘s Super Bowl LI and on National Day.

Frame from "It's Beautiful", with company logo and claim.

Coke Super Bowl Commercial 2014 "America The Beautiful" -HD- Coca Cola

Plot

The commercial presents different scenes of people of all ages, genders, religions and ethnicities engaged in different activities in various locations of America, from exploring the country to enjoying the opportunities it offers, all while promoting Coca Cola. Some of these are a typical cowboy riding through the mountains and enjoying the beautiful landscapes, two kids at the cinema sipping Coca Cola, a big family spending reunited at a diner, some young people surfing at sunset, a gay couple spending time with the daughter, some youngsters dancing in the street, a group of young Muslim girls hanging out and many more. Many American faces are easy to spot and clearly framed-  young, brown, white, old, gay, each symbolizing the idea of diversity, progression and acceptance. 

The background song is not the National Anthem but a version of "America the Beautiful" by K.L. Barthes, sung in a succession of single voices and in many different languages including English, Spanish, Keres, Tagalog, Hindi, Senegalese-French and Hebrew – the young singers also appear in some scenes of the commercial. Lastly, one of the most interesting things is that the logo is not easy to spot at first in some scenes- it is more often a background element. 

Research

The Research phase involved conducting research on the target audience for the campaign and what message would resonate with them. Coca-Cola found that the Super Bowl audience is diverse and that a campaign that promotes unity and togetherness would be well-received.

Strategy

Use of Emotions

Coca-Cola has often adopted emotional appeals in its campaigns, but compared to previous ones the emotional reactions of the audience have been far more intense and contrasting in this case. (See Point 5 – Reactions). It is exactly the choice of specific moments in life and the people which has contributed to these reactions: a gay couple (the first ever to appear in a commercial), the cowboy as a symbol of America, but most interestingly the choice of women and children as the main actors. (See Point 2 – The Plot) Further elements that deserve consideration are the Language and the Music. Coca Cola decided to use a modified version of the popular patriotic song “America, the Beautiful” which is not entirely sung in English but also in other languages to address those Americans with a different ethnical background.

Coca Cola Statement

The intended message of the commercial was published on Coca-Cola´s website:

“[...] America is beautiful, and Coca-Cola is for everyone. It celebrates Coca-Cola moments among all Americans and features snapshots of American families. We believe it’s a powerful ad that promotes optimism, inclusion and celebrates humanity – values that are core to Coca-Cola. “It’s Beautiful” shows just a few of the ways Americans enjoy our brand and how Coca-Cola brings families and friends together every day.” “It features people enjoying moments of happiness with one another over a delicious, refreshing Coke. The overall message of inclusion communicated by the ad reflects some of Coca-Cola’s most important values.”

Underlying Message

Besides the official statement released by the company, various journalists and scholars were searching for the reasons why Coca Cola chose these motives. Scholar Daniel Asmuss believes that in modern times people can hardly find common denominators of culture that can define who they are. Thus, he suggests that through the commercial advertisers have tried to tap into already existing sentiments, using the following reasoning lines:

1. The bedrock for the campaign “It´s beautiful” is the so called “Pursuit of Happiness”, which is a virtue anchored in the Declaration of Independence. This means that all American citizens are entitled to strive for, regardless on ethnicity, religion, gender. 
2. Furthermore, Coca Cola promises “Happiness”, which is also clear in its famous tagline “Open Happiness”.
3. This should lead to the conclusion that Coca Cola offers unites Americans as it provides citizens with happiness. 

Intended Strategy

After the airing of the commercial which was followed by strong debates throughout the media and social media (see Point 5 -Reactions), the audience started wondering whether the reactions were part of Coca Cola’s intended strategy. Whilst the ad´s director denied any deliberate intentions to divide America, media and literature mentioned the following three points as possible reasons:

1. By taking a stance on societal issues, Coca Cola intended to further the personality of the brand.
2. The controversy, outrage was deliberately created in order to stimulate Customer Engagement.
3. The commercial should contribute to expand market share in the “low-income-population” which is considered to be the product’s heavy user. Thereby the inflammation of conservatives was deliberately taken at risk.

Production

The provocative aspect of the commercial arises from its nationalist sentiment, which can be drawn both from the song “America the beautiful” as an expression of national pride and from the many emblems of the typical American culture appearing in the commercial, from the cowboy as the typical Western American image, to cities streets and their road scenarios and big families reunion at the diner.

Three main players have contributed to the production of the advertisement, great advertising agency Wieden+Kennedy, young, innovative company Skunk and finally art director John Hillcoat renowned for his movies and music videos. All of them have taken part in the production of this surprising unexpected spot which is precise and classic in its construction.

The American culture and multiculturalism as the main themes of the advertisement have been interpreted by the artistic director as he explains:

"[…]There are two things that impress me about Coke. First is the pop-art element, the way that Coke itself has become a part of our modern culture […] But also the historical dedication to breaking down boundaries in their advertisement. They were the first company to use an African-American female in their advertisements. And this was in the 60s at the height of the civil-rights movement. There’s also an ad at that time that features a bunch of school kids hanging out on a bench together. Black and white. So we want to push boundaries through the medium.”

Reception

This commercial yielded a big discussion in the U.S. The fact that it was broadcast during the political debate on Muslim ban generated controversy. Indeed, the commercial appeared on TV after President Donald Trump had signed an executive order on January 27^th preventing immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S.

Negative Reception

Many were the negative reactions. The most debated issue on social media posts was that people of other ethnicities were singing “America the Beautiful” in their own language, and not in English. On Twitter the hashtags #BoycottCoke and #SpeakAmerica were more than 8000, representing approximately 30% of the total number of tweets, with retweets representing another 70%. Many people in the U.S. found the ad very divisive, such as Glenn Beck, once Fox's foremost firebreather, who has perceived the ad as a provocation.

"'Why did you need that to divide us politically?' Because that's all this ad is. It's in your face, and... if you're offended by it, you're a racist. If you do like it... You're for progress." He had a point. Coke's claim to be shocked at the response was disingenuous. The blowback was not only predictable – in marketing terms it was the point. For the ad positioned itself on a crucial fault line in America's culture wars between tradition, myth and modernity.”

Furthermore, a study conducted in 2004 by J. Hoewe and P. K. Hatemi has shown what follows: 

“More conservative individuals were significantly likely to abandon their brand loyalty in favor of their political orientations by switching from their preferred Coca-Cola products to Pepsi products after viewing the Coca-Cola advertisement with Muslim and Arab individuals featured in it.”

And again: 

“The change between initial product preference and actual product selection was not similarly influenced by the advertisement for more liberal individual.”

Despite the negative comments and reactions, Coca-Cola decided to re-air the commercial during other major events.

Positive Reception

The enormous amount of anger messages on Twitter resulted in a backlash of its own, as people across the Internet rallied to the commercial’s defense. Thus, a part of the online response was positive with people praising Coca-Cola’s presentation of the ethnic and linguistic diversity which characterizes USA.

See Also

• Coca Cola
• Wieden + Kennedy
• John Hillcoat
• Super Bowl XVLII final
• America is beautiful
• 2014 Winter Olympics
• 2016 Summer Olympics
• Super Bowl LI
• Muslim ban
• Donald Trump