Coke Hands
Coca-Cola2012
Coke Hands is a 2012 poster (bus shelters and elevators) for Coca-Cola, created by Ogilvy & Mather Shanghai.
Why it works
The poster is Coca-Cola's signature white ribbon, redrawn on a field of red as two arms meeting in the middle, one hand passing a bottle of Coke to the other. There is no logo: the ribbon everyone already knows does the branding, and the gesture of sharing does the selling. The poster went up in bus shelters and elevators across Shanghai in April 2012 as part of Open Happiness. It was drawn by Jonathan Mak Long, a Hong Kong design student whose Steve Jobs tribute had gone viral and caught the eye of Graham Fink, Ogilvy China's chief creative officer; Fink presented it as a show-stopping case of less is more in a market where clutter is the norm. It is studied as a masterclass in reductive design and in trusting the equity of a brand mark. At Cannes in 2012 it shared the Outdoor Grand Prix with Mercedes-Benz's Invisible Drive; Ad Age noted it was only the second Cannes Grand Prix won from mainland China.
Techniques
- Visual metaphor The brand's familiar white ribbon is redrawn as two arms meeting in the middle, so the mark itself becomes the picture and no logo is needed.
- Pathos One hand passing a bottle to another makes the drink a simple gesture of sharing, letting that feeling, rather than any claim, do the selling.
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