Blending design with technology

We all enjoy a bit of hubris (if it’s at someone else’s expense) so I guess there will be plenty of armchair pundits lining up to critique the discontinuing of Coca-Cola’s Christmas can. The issue is obvious – shoppers have been confusing this limited edition design with the sister brand, Diet Coke. In fact, this issue is so obvious, many pundits are asking how Coca-Cola could not see it coming. But then that’s hubris – folly committed by a hero who has started to believe their own press and lost touch with reality.

A couple of (hopefully less obvious) observations. Effective packaging can have its ingredients boiled down to only a few things: logo, colour, shapes and overall ‘tone of voice’. It’s instructive to see that one of the world’s most famous logos, one not shared by Diet Coke, is seemingly unrecognisable when the design slips its moorings from the famous red. That’s quite chastening. Colour might not be ‘ownable’ but clearly it’s rather fundamental to recognition in this case.

Secondly, Coke has pretty good form when it comes to Christmas (they are often credited with popularising the convention of Santa wearing a red suit). They also have pretty good form with polar bears – lots of famous adverts featuring them. I think it says something about how much Coke has in the bank that it chose not to use its most well established equities this time around. It also says something creditable about their appetite to devise fresh new iconography.

But finally, even when they get it wrong, they get it right. The whole point of these packs was to promote their partnering of the World Wildlife Fund to raise awareness about global warming. Did you know about this before the white can was discontinued? (And exactly how discontinued are we talking? The white edition will have been printed and shipped. Obviously they were not going to run it past Christmas).