Coca-Cola Creates Park. Website design and marketing inspiration
by Josette Millar
Although I do not recommend drinking Coca-Cola (too much sugar or dangerous Aspartame), I enjoy the bold creativity of their advertising agency.
For part of Coca-Cola’s promotion “Where Will Happiness Strike Next?” they created an instant park in a gray square of a city (in Lithuania in this case). Their message is about brightening gray days in cities across the world.
The instant park was built in the shape of a Coca-Cola bottle with grass, trees and even a rabbit running around. It attracted a lot of visitors that stopped to sip on a Coca-Cola while taking off their shoes and walking on the new grass. Some even took a nap, brought their picnic basket, played Frisbee or guitar. A cute little girl is maneuvering her kite through the crowd. All of them drinking free of charge Coca-Cola from a large vending machine.
Most people were encouraged to remove their shoes. There is a freeing effect of walking bare feet on grass. Combining with drinking Coca-Cola, surrounded by trees and sun, it feels heavenly, doesn’t it? Coca-Cola succeeds in bringing a smile to every face and creating a feeling that all will remember and now associate with drinking Coca-Cola. Is this our new happiness?
Advertisers know that it is not enough to just give a free product to get people to like it. It is creating the feeling of satisfaction, happiness, joy or contentment that will make a difference. The well-known saying “you won’t remember what they say or what they do, but you will remember forever how you feel” is definitely at the basis of Coca-Cola’s new campaign.
Do you think you would continue drinking Coca-Cola after spending half an hour in their instant green heaven while sipping on their sweet drink? I would like to say that I wouldn’t, but hmmm… my imagination already remembers that heavenly feeling.
Can we create that same feeling through website design? It’s more challenging than mimicking a real experience such as Coca-Cola has done. We cannot engage the sense of touch on the Internet yet, but we can use the elements of visual design and messaging to trigger desirable feelings. A web agency’s primary goal is to create visitors’ experiences that will engage them to remain on the site and learn more about a company. An easy way to gauge this importance is to land on an old website that looked great 10 years ago but today looks as dated as the old silent movies. You are not likely to stay on that old site for more than a second.
How can we create a feeling that people will remember and want to return to?
That’s where we come in. We create websites for success!