It’s been close to six decades since Andy Warhol presented his critique of consumerist culture using his silkscreens of Coke bottle after Coke bottle—“A Coke is a Coke.” Now, Coca-Cola has responded.
Coca-Cola has initiated its latest global campaign dubbed “Masterpiece,” leading with a short film that features iconic and contemporary paintings, all of them animated in various painterly styles to foreground a Coke bottle.
The film opens in an art museum where a student in an art class has found himself in a creative slump. So, of course, he needs a Coke.
An arm reaches out from French painter Aket’s Divine Idyll (2022) for a bottle in Warhol’s Coca-Cola (4) (1962), peeling it off and tossing it across the gallery. The bottle is then caught and passed along by figures in J.M.W Turner’s The Shipwreck (1805), Edvard Munch’s The Scream (1895), and Utagawa Hiroshige’s Drum Bridge and Setting Sun Hill (1858).
The bottle also finds its way through the works of contemporary artists such as Vikram Kushwah, Stefania Tejada, and Fatma Ramadan. The subject of Wonderbuhle’s 2022 portrait You Can’t Curse Me even lands squarely in Van Gogh’s Bedroom in Arles (1889).
The coke finally lands in the hands of Vermeer’s Girl With a Pearl Earring (1665), who opesn the bottle for our uninspired student. He drinks and is refreshed.
Additionally, the campaign also has an online build-out in the form of a gallery of the featured artworks, and interviews with the contemporary artists whose works were included in the campaign.
In addition to sharing their inspirations for the specific pieces in the film, these young artists further reflect on Coca-Cola’s impact as a brand. The Paris-based Tejada recalled Coke’s ubiquitous presence during her childhood; South African artist Wonderbuhle deemed the brand a “joy;” while Aket reckoned Coca-Cola’s advertisements “encourage us to live our dreams every day.”
The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts has expressed excitement at connecting the pop artist’s work with that of the Coca-Cola brand in a real way. “These pieces, paired with works by emerging artists from around the globe,” said Michael Dayton, the foundation’s director of licensing, marketing, and sales, “celebrate the inspirational power of visual art through the magical lens of Coca-Cola.”
The campaign will travel across Latin America, Asia, and other markets, also in the forms of 3D billboards and digital collectibles, in Coca-Cola’s ongoing bid to ensure a Coke is more than a Coke.
