Could Coca Cola use humour to respond to Ronaldo?

On Monday 14 June 2021, Coca Cola lost $4bn in it’s share price after footballer Cristiano Ronaldo moved two of it’s bottles slightly to the left on a table. Such is the world we live in.

Disclaimer: this incident may not have been the only factor in the share price drop. Although it was high profile and it makes for a good story, so we like to believe it.

Coca Cola responded by issuing a statement the following day confirming that “Everyone is entitled to their drink preferences,” and that “each individual has different tastes and needs”. Managing to simultaneously both shut down the incident and win the award for the best statement that doesn’t actually state anything at all. 

But did they miss a trick here? Could they have done something positive with this instead?

One logical solution would be for Coca Cola to try shifting the bottles in the opposite direction on the table, thereby potentially adding $4bn to the share price.

Unfortunately any attempt at such scientific experimentation was barred by UEFA subsequently banning the moving of drinks bottles in press conferences (no really, this is true – https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/57517337). So now we’ll never know.

What we can consider is whether there was an opportunity to use humour.

Coca Cola sponsors the Euros to take advantage of association bias. As a brand they have been hugely successful by associating with positive emotional experiences, such as the joy of Christmas. And heroic athletic and sporting achievement fits perfectly with this.

One way in which they could have responded in this case is to humanise the brand by considering the people at Coca Cola watching the incident unfold.

Example scene 1:

We see the Coca Cola Studios production team watching and reacting to the incident live. An artist appears on screen.

Artist: “Does this mean we won’t be unveiling my painting?” 

Camera pans round to reveal a huge painted mural of an ecstatic Cristiano Ronaldo holding a coke bottle like a trophy above his head. 

Producer: “Not now Rob.”

Example scene 2:

We see the Coca Cola Studios production team watching and reacting to the incident live.

Producer shouts: “OK who left their coke bottles on the table?”

Silence as everyone looks around.

An intern comes into shot.

Intern: “Are we still going live with the “Ronaldo Range” campaign?”

Intern reveals a coke bottle with the screw cap replaced by a replica Cristiano Ronaldo head. It looks ridiculous.

Producer: “No”

Example scene 3:

Coca Cola issue an alternative statement:

“Following an incident at a recent press conference involving Cristiano Ronaldo and bottles of coke, we can confirm we’ve decided not to offer Mr Ronaldo the role of head of product placement. We won’t be making any further comment at this time.”

These options are self deprecating without showing the product or brand in a negative way, which is vital when using humour.

It is worth highlighting at this point that the incident itself is already very funny. No one has noticed this, because to do so means not looking at Cristiano Ronaldo on the video, which has been proven physically impossible in many large scale tests.

Let’s instead focus on the Portugal manager Fernando Santos. First we get to enjoy his brilliant double take head movement as he clocks that something unusual is happening, followed by an automatic reach out to his own Coca Cola bottles. Once there, his conscious brain takes over and, realising that it would not be wise for him to copy Cristiano Ronaldo, he strokes the bottles before concluding with a wonderful comic raise of the eyebrows.

This was all the work of the Portugal manager. But there was certainly scope for Coca Cola to react with humour too.

When the health impact of the brand has been called into question by an athlete such as Cristiano Ronaldo, responding with self deprecating humour in this way demonstrates a degree of self awareness. This could endear Coca Cola to it’s customers by showing their human side.

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