To celebrate the spirit of football season, Coca-Cola wanted to show how 'Things go better with Coke' keeping football in mind.
It would be displayed at one of the world's most iconic and instantly recognizable places of all time: 'Times Square' in New York City.
Since we already have a series of neon-style designs, we decided to continue with that series.
THE IDEA
Hundreds of artists have worked for Coca-Cola over the years, and pretty much everything seems to have been done in some way, shape or form. So, to come up with something new and minimalistic is an extremely challenging task.
Since it had to be done in neon-style, it meant the design had to be simple, yet clever. I researched into a lot of aspects of the game to see what the most iconic things are that stand out uniquely as 'football' when reduced to basic shapes and forms. What I got was a short list of ideas like tackling, shape of the ball, style of holding the ball etc. After that, I had to make a connection between that and Coke.
THE PROCESS
Here are some of the ones that did not make it to the production stage but are still worth mentioning. These were all created in Illustrator/Photoshop for the purpose of approval.
APPROVED
Everyone seemed to be in love with this particular one since it answered the brief perfectly using basic elements. You see a player holding a football—which speaks to the game aspect—and the state changes to showcase celebration with two people cheers-ing with their Coke bottles. This was then moved to the production stage where it was made to look neon-style through CGI.
Since the board also has side display panels, we made an alternate version which fit the narrow dimensions.
INSTAGRAMERS
I saw people having fun taking pictures with it so I had to include their happy faces here as well. Cheers!
AWARDS
GOLD ADDY® Award 2020 [National]
The Coca-Cola Company - Times Square, NYC [OOH Campaign]
GOLD ADDY® Award 2020 [National]
The Coca-Cola Company - Times Square, NYC [Super-Sized, Extension / Dimensional, Digital or Animated – Single Unit]
GOLD ADDY® Award 2020 [Atlanta]
The Coca-Cola Company - Times Square, NYC [OOH Campaign]
GOLD ADDY® Award 2020 [Atlanta]
The Coca-Cola Company - Times Square, NYC [Super-Sized, Extension / Dimensional, Digital or Animated – Single Unit]
Celebration
This is the biggest thing I have ever made. In all senses—the size and scale of the brand, location and visibility. It was a good reminder of why I love doing the things I do and also serves as a 10-year career anniversary checkpoint.
Music Credits: Ausländer by Rammstein
Credits
Client: Coca-Cola
Agency: KO:OP [In-House Agency at The Coca-Cola Company]
Agency: KO:OP [In-House Agency at The Coca-Cola Company]
Group Director: Heather Bell
Account Director: Beth Gustafson
Executive Creative Director: Taylor Crawford
Art Director: Dheeraj Govindraju
Executive Creative Director: Taylor Crawford
Art Director: Dheeraj Govindraju
Production: Giant Ant
