The Pause That Refreshes

Is there a company that strives as hard to offend one of its most important target audiences as Coke? First the series of commercials featuring the young documentary team searching the country to tell the tales of the people their age and how they live their lives. I've heard this hooted by an audience of primarily college-aged filmgoers. And before you say they were just complaining about commercials, none of the other ads got the same reaction. And now the whole "I'd like to teach the world to chill" commercials, a homage (pastiche? remake? sequel?) to the classic "I'd like to teach the world to sing" commercial of the 70s, except substituting the word "chill" for "sings". Cause, you know, it's what the kids say. It's the word on the street. And the good folks at Coke are nothing if not "down" with the street.

I can't imagine those ads are hitting the target any better than the psuedo-documentary ads. I momentarily wondered if Coke wasn't really trying to reach the "older folks pretending to be hip" market with these, but figured even that market wouldn't be buying these ads. It's certainly the case that the "older folks who actually are cool" market, of which I am one, doesn't think these ads work.