Coca-Cola wanted everyone to imagine a world without labels and to push forward in that direction, the beverage company has dropped its own. It has indeed introduced in the Middle East region, during the Ramadan period, and through its agency FP7/DXB, a new version of its iconic red-and-white can. The new red can feature Coke\'s signature dynamic ribbon without Coca-Cola naming on it as it is intended to promote open-mindedness and tolerance. The back of the can bears the message \"Labels are for cans, not people.\" Along with this, an accompanying video stressing on the idea behind the campaign was released, where six men were shown discussing their lives in a dark room. When the lights came on, preconceptions about each others were completely shattered.
Although many thought--as it appeared from the feedback on social media platforms--this was a creative and innovative idea, it quickly appeared that what Coke did was nothing new to the marketing world. As a matter of fact, Joe La Pompe, the infamous copycat hunter, released on his website a similar execution to Coke's concept.
Done for Absolut Vodka few years back, the tagline for the "Absolut no label" campaign read: "In an Absolut world, there are no labels". The vodka company's campaign was also designed to tackle prejudice, however, the slight difference is that it was aimed at showing support to gay rights. The naked ABSOLUT bottle, with no label and no logo, was launched globally in the fall of 2009. A discrete and easily removable sticker with the campaign manifesto encouraged consumers to discard their labels and to visit absolut.com/nolabel - a blog discussing labels and prejudice associated with the LGBT community.
So again, we are ought to wonder if original and fresh ideas are no more in advertising… When two beverages companies launch limited edition naked bottles/cans in order to fight prejudice, questioning originality in advertising is legitimate and wondering if there is copycat infringement here is also invalid. Well, you be the judge!
