Visual Analysis Revised

This Coca-Cola advertisement was posted on Toxel.com, a blog that posts creative advertisements and other items to showcase design talent. The blog states that the ad is intended for a Russian audience, indicating Coca-Cola’s expansion into new international markets. Because of this new context, Coca-Cola has had to adapt its advertising appeal and angle. They must take into account the ways in which a Russian audience will respond to their product and the different symbols and emotional appeals that will inspire Russians to buy it. For example, Coca-Cola generally seeks to associate their beverages with refreshment. As this advertisement implies, refreshment takes a very different form in places like Russia and Coca-Cola is seeking to portray itself accordingly.

While the audience of this ad may be vastly different, the ad conveys similar emotions to other Coca-Cola ads. Its main emotions are those of satisfaction, refreshment, relief, and enjoyment. However, beneath these emotions, the ad also conveys certain negative feelings that form the presupposed basis for these positive emotions, giving the positive ones their impact. For example, by showing a man wearing gloves and a hat, standing in a frigid, snowy forest area, the viewer is led to feel cold and uncomfortable and thus angry, fearful, frustrated, or in pain or anguish. These emotions produce a need or longing in the viewer for other emotions to take their place.

The ad further presupposes the need of this man by his response to the bottle in the forefront. His eyes are shut, as though all the surrounding discomfort has disappeared or become irrelevant; he is gripping the bottle, indicating his intense desire for and enjoyment of its contents; the bottle is positioned above his head at a downward angle, with the arm holding it hidden, causing him to appear as a helpless baby, nursing at his mother’s breast or sucking on his beloved bottle for comfort and security. His clear satisfaction could only result from a striking need produced by discomfort.

This bottle is presented as clearly effective at alleviating the negative feelings this man must be experiencing, even more than all the warm clothing he is wearing. The viewer is thus led to pass through this process of feeling uncomfortable or dissatisfied and therefore angry, frustrated, or pained, to desiring relief from these emotions, to then experiencing an array of positive emotions because of the bottle in hand. Then, the item that is bringing fulfillment to the man’s need is identified to the viewer by the striking label in the center: Coca-Cola.

This emotional experience embodied in the ad inspires you to buy and drink Coca-Cola. This is based on the interpretation that, whenever the viewer finds himself in desperate need of relief, not only will this drink be enjoyable, but it will be able to quell all negative feelings caused by one’s environment. Another interpretation is that when all normal attempts may be powerless to bring relief from pain and agony, Coca-Cola is a reliable, powerful, compassionate, even empathetic force, willing to enter into the bitterly cold, painful experience to administer comfort and much needed satisfaction.

The emotional experience and appeal of the ad is built on certain stereotypes, such as the experience of desperation in uncomfortable situations. It uses this stereotype as representative of any unpleasant experience, identifying Coca-Cola as the ideal means of escape. The cold background is also iconic of an unpleasant situation, especially given the intended Russian audience. The Coca-Cola emblem and its being drunk by a happy customer is also a common symbol used to represent the Coca-Cola company and its products. Finally, the reminiscent positioning of the bottle is a symbol of dependence and innocence that most human beings, of any age, can relate to and might also reflect the nostalgic longing of most individuals for the security of their mother’s love and provision.