Monday, February 09, 2015

12491: BHM 2015—Coke.

Coke and Steve Harvey offer teens a chance to attend the Coca-Cola Pay It Forward Academy—although the person responsible for the body copy in this print ad should be sent to a writing academy.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I don't know where else to stick this. It would be so cool if you had a tip box like Agency Spy (may the ghost of what it used to be rest in peace).

http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/rap_grammy_3.png

Wish there was a chart like this for the ad agency world, especially showing how many minority creative directors were ever nominated for anything in America.

HereIsHowItWorks said...

This looks like a one-off. That’s where the Coke diversity department finds some 2-person black agency in Wichita to design the ad.

The poor agency can’t afford full-time A-list designers or writers (because they’re only getting one BHM job a year), so they do the best they can and this is it.

Diversity magazines are littered with the corpses of this kind of work. Most of the time it’s some tiny ethnic shop who gets a bone thrown at them during Hispanic Heritage Month / Native American Heritage Month, etc. and then gets a cold shoulder from corporate the rest of the year.

The ethnic shop can’t do good work because they’re only allowed one shot at it yearly, and because it always looks undercooked like this they’re never given more than one shot a year. Catch-22.

08501 said...

My money’s on corporate. No way an ad agency OK’d the copy in this thing. Some black intern in the Coke PR department just got their first portfolio piece. Cringe worthy as it is.

On the plus side if Coke did this ad internally, you can see why outside ad agencies will always have a role.

AndWhyItWorks said...

To continue, . . .
And then the General market lead agency of record Creative Director (and don't you ever forget it) makes last-minute and arbitrary changes because "they just don't think it works." What's left is a thoughtless and bland execution beyond the pale for everyone involved. And then this sad, uninspired and anemic work will be held up a year later (during BHM) as proof why not to let the partner agency create anymore work. After all, "We could've done better than this."
Been there.