A brand reading

Coca-Cola.

Innocent A world in harmony.

Coke’s longest-running brand idea is that it produces, at the moment of consumption, a sensation of universal goodness. The product is incidental; the feeling is the brand. The 1971 Hilltop spot is the Innocent at its most expansive.

The reading.

Innocent with a Caregiver counterweight, expressed.

Character
Innocent
Drive
Blissfulness, goodness, simplicity, honesty, positivity.
Fear
Distress, wrongdoing, complexity, duplicity, negativity.
Strategy
Build trust by holding, and voicing, the values customers share.
Counterweight
Caregiver
Opportunity
Soft drinks sold refreshment. Harmony was the open lane.
Diagnostic
Expressed (occasionally distorted)

The Innocent at its most expansive. Coke sells the feeling of universal goodness at the moment of consumption, and distorts when it overpromises harmony. The Caregiver counterweight is the warmth it offers the crowd.

Famous spot

Hilltop / I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke, 1971