My Favorite Ad – Pt. 3
A well-known and world-famous commercial for Coca-Cola was created on a napkin during a layover in a fog-bound Irish airport. Two Americans – an ad exec for McCann-Erickson, Coke’s agency of record in the early 1970s, and a songwriter – took a British jingle called “True Love and Apple Pie” and rewrote the lyrics to teach the world to sing. And they made a commercial that is one of my top three ads of all time.
Starting its ad life as a radio spot, “Buy the World a Coke” debuted in February 1971 but didn’t sit well with Coca-Cola bottlers. However, DJs loved that it was generating a lot of listener interest. So Bill Backer, the ad exec, persuaded Coke to film a commercial. Production was stymied for many reasons until it finally all came together in Rome at a cost of $250,000, making it the most expensive commercial ever made at that time. Five hundred teenagers lip synched to a recording made by a group of studio musicians later calling themselves the Hillside Singers.
Coke and its bottlers received more than 100,000 letters about the TV spot. A single recorded by the Hillside Singers made it to the UK and US charts within two weeks. The New Seekers, another singing group, also recorded the song with slightly altered lyrics omitting references to Coke, which sold 96,000 copies in a single day, eventually selling 12 million copies.
The Coca-Cola Company donated the first $80,000 in royalties from the song to UNICEF under an agreement with the writers.
But that’s not the end of the story. The song has been performed by a wide spectrum of musicians, from Chet Atkins, Waylon Jennings, the Ray Conniff Singers and Tennessee Ernie Ford to Lea Salonga and Jim Nabors.
In 1990, the Super Bowl’s commercial lineup featured a “reunion” commercial, made with the original performers…and their children. In 2005, a version rewritten as “I’d like to teach the world to chill” launched Coke Zero. And in 2015, “Mad Men,” my favorite TV series of all time, used it in its finale’s closing scenes.
Talk about life coming full circle.
Watch the full commercial here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VM2eLhvsSM