New York
CNN Business
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Coca-Cola is hoping that this vacation season, households will crack open some Cokes, settle right into a at ease spot and watch its first Christmas Anthology movie collection.
The beverage corporate partnered with manufacturing company Imagine Entertainment to create 3 quick movies, which can be to be had to observe on Amazon Prime around the globe beginning Wednesday.
The mission is a continuation of Coca-Cola’s Real Magic platform, which takes an experimental method to advertising and marketing the corporate’s core product.
In the previous 12 months, Real Magic has eager about odd, limited-time flavors reminiscent of Starlight, Byte and Dreamworld, that have been introduced along virtual studies together with a holographic live performance and a debut in Fortnite. The Christmas Anthology is a part of a brand new platform known as Real Magic Presents.
For Coca-Cola
(KO), it’s necessary to do extra than simply promote soda — the soda massive has to hook up with more youthful customers and construct new traditions, particularly as passion in sugary, carbonated comfortable beverages stagnates.
“We’re always exploring new ways to reach our audience,” mentioned Selman Careaga, class president of Coca-Cola trademark, calling Christmas “a great canvas for creativity.” The anthology, he mentioned, is “a new way to engage” with the vacation.
Coca-Cola has a historical past of associating itself with Christmas, such a lot in order that the corporate has an FAQ web page for “Did Coca-Cola create Santa Claus?” (The solution: Sort of. In 1931, the corporate commissioned a portray of Santa that aligns with how he’s portrayed in america lately, in keeping with the web page.)
In more moderen years, the corporate’s polar bears and brightly-lit vehicles had been strongly related with the vacation.
This 12 months, Coke is attempting one thing slightly extra high-concept.
After launching the Real Magic platform in 2021, Coca-Cola printed a video on YouTube known as “Real Magic at Christmas,” a couple of boy who bonds along with his new neighbors through running in combination to construct a chimney out of cardboard packing containers.
This 12 months, the quick movies are longer — working between 10 and 12 mins — and extra formidable.
There’s “Alma,” which presentations a unmarried mother who has cooled on Christmas being reminded of the enjoyment of the vacation through a sentient pc; “Les Petits Mondes De Noël,” a moody love tale about two exes who reunite in Paris; and “Christmas Bites,” a couple of vampire who wins over his female friend’s circle of relatives when he steps in for Santa on Christmas Eve.
A viewer wouldn’t essentially know that those are Coca-Cola motion pictures, apart from for the truth that each and every movie options a minimum of one personality sipping a Coke.
But for the corporate, the shorts are about extra than simply product placement. “It allows us to work on content that fits into our Real Magic platform,” mentioned Careaga.
The movies don’t seem to be your standard tacky Christmas film, and now not best as a result of they’re shorts. There are not any overt love tales, fats snowflakes swirling round faux units or unpleasant sweaters (a minimum of, now not too many).
The Hallmark fashion could also be fashionable within the United States, but it surely doesn’t essentially have world attraction, mentioned Marc Gilbar, EVP of manufacturers and documentaries at Imagine Entertainment.
“I mentioned Hallmark films” to individuals of the worldwide workforce running at the venture, Gilbar mentioned. “That shorthand doesn’t mean much to someone in Spain or someone in Argentina. It’s more centered on our traditions.”
The Coca-Cola anthology is designed to attraction to a world target market. “Alma,” set in Mexico, is in Spanish, and “Les Petits Mondes De Noël,” is in French. Only “Christmas Bites” is in English.
And even supposing those are without a doubt Christmas motion pictures, they’re now not openly spiritual.
“Christmas means different things to different people,” Gilbar mentioned. “The religious aspect never really came up. It was more about other traditions.”
As Coke dips its ft in film-making, rival Pepsi took some other means, partnering with “Falling for Christmas” famous person Lindsay Lohan to advertise Pilk, or Pepsi plus milk, as a vacation custom.
