From Coca-Cola’s global ad that shows how people across the world are rekindling their love for cooking during lockdown to Spotify having a ‘good day’ with their Twitter display picture and Gucci partnering with Snapchat for the first global branded AR shoe try-on Lenses, here are the campaigns that Ritwika Gupta loved this week:

Brand: Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola has launched its first global ad since the coronavirus pandemic took hold. The 1-minute-30 -second ad shows how people across the globe are rekindling their love for cooking during lockdown. The ad starts off with a voice-over: “The day the world stopped is the day we found where to go”. We see families from diverse backgrounds tuck into a series of home-cooked meals, with a glass or bottle of Coca-Cola. The ad, featuring 13 real families from Kiev, Lisbon, London, Mexico City, Mumbai, Orlando and Shanghai, was filmed remotely during the quarantine. It is currently running in the U.S. and will air in Germany, Spain, Morocco, France, India and most Asian countries in the coming weeks. I think this is one of the few lockdown ads that has been shot, directed and edited remotely, spanning across several countries and continents. The ad recognizes how people around the world are spending more time cooking together and sharing meals at home. Coca-cola comes across as a brand that fits in beautifully with families across the worlds, cooking up meals ranging from home-made dim sums to fried pooris and even pizzas. There’s a certain comfort about Coke’s connection to food and people from all over the world. And this sense of comfort is necessary during these times. I love that the ad creates a big unifying sentiment. It is inclusive and relevant to today’s new normal. Even though it follows the theme of ads from previous years, showcasing people sharing meals in restaurants and drinking the soda, the latest message has been updated to resonate with folks in the era of social-distancing.

Campaign: The Great Meal / Together Tastes Better
Agency: Anomaly, New York

Brand: Spotify

The internet could not keep calm when someone on Twitter named Harsha, (handle: @tapanguchi) shared an interesting observation between Spotify and a Britannia Good Day biscuit, pointing out how the biscuit shape and Spotify logo look similar. The tweet received over 3000 retweets and 20,000 likes. This caught Spotify India’s attention and the brand, very sportingly, changed its profile picture on Twitter to that of the Britannia Good Day. Their new bio read, “even we can’t unsee it now”.

I think this is an amazing way to create snack-able content! People have pretty short attention spans these days. In this case, Spotify was quick to react and change their profile picture. It was timely and most likely left an impression on customers or the public at large. The best part is that initial tweet came from a user who is not working for Spotify or Britannia. Therefore, I think the whole organic nature of it appealed to a lot of people and grabbed attention. Hats off to Spotify for piggybacking on the tweet and taking it a step further by actually changing their display photo for a day. Well-played!

Campaign: Spotify has a good day
Agency: 22feet Tribal Worldwide

Brand: Gucci

Gucci has partnered with Snapchat to create the first global branded AR shoe try-on Lenses. The luxury fashion brand sponsored an augmented reality (AR) lens that overlays a digital version of its shoes on a smartphone user’s feet and shows a “shop now” button for immediate purchase. Given the current circumstances, I think it’s quite incredible to let people virtually try on a pair of shoes before making a purchase. The activation gives the luxury brand a chance to reach consumers who aren’t able to visit a store in regions where stores remain closed because of the pandemic. However, I am not sure why the brand decided to partner with Snapchat because the app caters to a very young audience which may not wield much spending power to buy luxury goods. Last year, Gucci added an AR feature to its iOS app that let shoppers virtually try on sneakers and make a purchase. I think their latest collaboration with Snapchat indicates that the brand has seen positive results from its adoption of AR. Athletic brands Adidas, Nike and Puma also have adopted AR shoe try-ons in their marketing.

Campaign: AR Shoes On Snapchat