2024 Gold Design or Art Direction

Agency: Ogilvy UK

Client: The Coca-Cola Company

Entry Title: Coca-Cola Paris 2024 Campaign

Executive Summary

To remain the world’s most iconic brand, Coca-Cola had to win the love of a generation with higher expectations of brands to demonstrate values of inclusivity and diversity. Along came the Olympic Games.

Strategy

The team needed to shine a new light on Coca-Cola’s values, which have always been rooted in human connection. For 96 years, Coca-Cola has partnered with the Olympic Games. Paris 2024 was the perfect stage to ignite the brand torch.

While the Olympics symbolise competition, it’s as much about the shared experience: an insight aligned with Gen Z’s values. They understand that it’s because of, not despite our differences, that amazing things happens.

The strategy aimed to get young people who believe in the power of human diversity to engage with Coca-Cola at the Olympics and Paralympics, by showing the magic that happens when people embrace difference.

Creativity

Re-watching iconic Olympic moments, the team discovered an unofficial yet universal symbol: the hug. Celebratory hugs between winners, comforting hugs following losses, and spontaneous hugs between strangers and rivals represented a universal connection.

The symbol was used to join two of the world’s most recognisable visuals: the Olympic rings and the Coca-Cola script. The hug became the heart of our campaign, a powerful symbol of unity transcending language and cultural barriers; a call to action.

This symbol was most powerfully and physically captured in Coca-Cola’s limited edition ‘hug cans’, designed to complete a hug when placed next to another can. The design itself was born from a collaboration of diverse artists with different backgrounds.

The global embrace then spread through a series of engagement lead activations:

• Hug Cam and Relay captured spontaneous hugs
• Hug murals and OOH installations transformed Parisian streets
• Hug Snap filter created digital interaction
• Hug vending machine dispensed beverages when people hugged

Results

11 million hugs, viewed by 1.6 billion people, were inspired by a simple gesture amplified by the power of Coca-Cola and the Olympics. Key brand measurements amongst Gen Z in France significantly increased. Weekly Gen Z drinkers increased by 2.1 points year-on-year.

The campaign sparked action: across all age groups in key markets (US/China/France), people were twice as likely to embrace diversity and connect with strangers, proving that even minor gestures can create significant ripples. The campaign boosted comfort levels with social interactions across all age groups.