Snow-Colored Coca-Cola Cans for Christmas
October 31, 2011 5 Comments
Coca-Cola normally brings out Christmas packaging by November and this year is no exception. This year, Coca-Cola has decided to offer their regular Coca-Cola soda in an arctic-white colored aluminum can instead of the traditional red. BevNet has some more information here. The packaging significance is that the commonly recognized red cans have always stayed that color until now, for a good cause. Will there be other colors that the company tries in the future – like pink for breast cancer awareness, or green for Earth Day, or maybe even a black can with black script for Earth Hour?
Coca-Cola has long supported the World Wildlife Foundation so this packaging alteration makes sense. However, they may not have strong no ties to any of those other organizations, so changing the cans to pink, green, black or any other color does not make sense.
Will Pepsi adjust any of their packaging this Christmas? Pepsi has traditionally gone along with all the seasonal festivities – last year they did “Ho Ho Ho” and replaced the “O” with their Pepsi circular logo. In terms of advertising, they haven’t really aired any of their Summer Santa or Uncle Teddy Pepsi commercials. Was the attempt to make use of the traditional Coca-Cola icons only temporary? Will they start airing them again, in conjunction with their X Factor Pepsi and NFL Pepsi Max commercials? After all, what better time to carve into Coca-Cola’s iconic polar bears and Santas than Christmas?
BRING BACK THE RED CANS WITH SANTA
Hey Floyd, I guess there’s no red santa cans this year, but the white cans will be disappearing soon enough. Red cans to re-appear by December, but still featuring the polar bear. Check out the packaging here –> http://twitter.com/#!/BeverageDigest/status/138686785709547521/photo/1
Hey BevWire, interesting news about the polar bear cans going back to red. I’m hoping these would be in Canada as well? The white cans are unique but, ultimately, Coke identity has always been associated with red.
I just found out, the red cans with polar bears are already being distributed in Hong Kong with ‘Merry Christmas’ written on them.
Hey rft3, totally agree with the whole identity association. Red has always been Coke’s color and switching to white for a good cause is fantastic, but they are still a business at the end of the day and need to think about their own brand equity. Maybe having a 12 or 24 pack that has both red and white cans would be good? What are your thoughts?
Thanks!
BW