Singapore Exhibit Prep

I have written a few post recently about the celebrations for our 125th anniversary.  This week I traveled to Singapore to attend an series of events to mark the celebrations.  I had worked with the local team to create a traveling exhibit for the ceremonies, so I was excited to see how they looked.  We had expanded our exhibit construction this year and had included iPads and video monitors to show more artifacts for each subject that was covered in the case.

We visited the venue today as the preperations were still under way.  It was amazing to see the exhibit cases being assembled by the team in Singapore.  The cases look good, but the exhibit hall was amazing with all the other Coke decorations.  I can't wait to share some photos of the event tomorrow.

Display in the Tank at the London Design Museum

I was fortunate to be in London last Friday night to open a new Coca-Cola exhibit in the Tank at the London Design Museum.  This exhibit was jointly curated the Archives and Ria Hawthorn of the Design Museum.  While the display space was fairly limited, our goal was to focus on the development of the script logo and the contour bottle.  At the urging of Ria, we are displaying many of our design standards manuals and sign painting guides for the first time.

The exhibit opening was celebrated by an evening event called Design in Perfect Harmony.  The event, which also launched the new Coca-Cola coffee table book, attracted over 350 visitors and featured activities to bring the brand to life including calligraphy lessons, bottle designs, singing choirs and plenty of Coca-Cola.  Several London bloggers attended the event and you can read their accounts (London is Cool, Swell Vintage) as well.

The exhibit in the Tank will be open until July, so if you are in London, stop by to see it.

World's Largest Thank You Card!

To celebrate 125 years of sharing happiness since the first Coca-Cola was enjoyed on May 8, 1886, wesent a spectacular visual “Thank You” through the world’s largest single building illumination of our headquarters tower in our hometown Atlanta. The illumination will be on display every Thursday, Friday and Saturday evening in May. You can see a video of the first lighting below, and below that you can read all of the technical details for us "techies".

Details on the illumination are below: The entire Coca-Cola tower in Atlanta – 26 stories high and 402 feet (122.8 m) high – was canvassed in scrim over a few weeks without sharing a word about the surprise visual spectacle to come. The projection surface area from all four sides of the building totals more than 210,000 square feet, making it the world’s largest single building illumination. The display uses 45 projectors, for a total of nearly 1 million lumens of light simultaneously projected onto the building. The visual design and projections were created and executed by Obscura Digital, and as you (hopefully) saw in the video above, it features the iconic Coca-Cola contour bottle projected in 3-D, and many images from our Archives! Also, it features photos posted by some of YOU - our Coca-Cola Facebook fans from around the world! Througout May, consumers who upload their favorite Coke photos to the Coca-Cola Facebook Fan Page could have their pictures in the show. If you're in Atlanta, stop by and see it! On the additional show nights, programming variations and surprise architectural effect elements will be added.

Coca-Cola Rush Hour Cinema in Bogotá!

Happiness Strikes Again! A friend of mine from Bogota, Colombia was on the scene of an exciting treat brought to commuters in Bogotá. I'll let her tell it in her own words, and enjoy the video:

"It was April the 14th, at 6:00 pm in Bogotá- Colombia South America and people once again thought – “Oh no here we go again another traffic Jam. I just got out of one!!.” But as always Coca-Cola with its joy and awesome ideas, turned all those frowning faces into happy ones presenting the first Rush Hour Cinema in the world. A simple Idea with the sparkling taste of everyone’s favorite. A Big Screen was settled at one of Bogota’s mayor avenues and a special frequency had the sound to the one minute movies that were presented. And since going to the movies is not the same without popcorn and off course a refreshing cold Coca-Cola Colombians at Bogotá did not only enjoy for the first time a traffic Jam but they also opened happiness and met the new 250 millimeters Mini Coke.

We all learned that the only thing you need in a traffic Jam is a Coke and a Smile and that reminds me of the 1979 campaign, I suppose there has always been a solution for long faces yet not for rush hour."

Vintage Guitar Play by One Night Only

A few weeks ago, I gave a tour of the Archives to the British rock group One Night Only (@onenightonly.)  During the tour, their lead singer George Craig loved the Coca-Cola Fender Stratocaster guitar.

When I heard the band would be playing during the employee 125th concert at Centennial Olympic Park on May 7th, I tweeted to the band asking if they wanted to play it, while they replied 'yes,'  It was a surprise to George when he arrived in Atlanta.  Here is what he told me after the concert.

"I first saw the Coke strat when we went on a tour of the archives a few weeks back. I was told the guitar used to belong to or was once played by Eric Clapton, I actually use strats live so kinda jokingly said they should let me use it at the 125th birthday show, I did not really expect anyone to agree but when we got on site for our rehearsal the day before the gig the guitar was there waiting for me! All it needed was a couple of intonation tweaks and a new set of strings and it was good to go.... It actually is a really nice guitar, has some really hot pickups and a great neck, it sounded awesome! I was hoping no one would remember to collect it after the show so I could keep it!"

We will have to see about the 'keep it" part, but boy it looks like if fits him!

Phil Mooney at 125th exhibit in China

The dust had barely settled on the 125th anniversary celebrations in Atlanta before Phil was on a plane headed to Shanghai to open a new exhibit for the anniversary.  The display opened at the Super Brand Mall in Shanghai, the mall is one of the biggest in the world and served as a great location for this exhibition.  Phil was introduced by Brenda Lee, our longtime VP of Public Affairs and Communications in the photo above.

The exhibit featured many of the icons of the Company, the carton, coupons and our trays as well as several newer items.  We shipped over one our of autographed Warhol prints, a beautiful Steve Penley painting along with many interesting collector bottles from around the world.  Local Coca-Cola collectors were also on hand to have their items reviewed by Phil.

The announcement was part of Coca-Cola’s year-long celebration, which has included special commemorative promotions with limited-edition souvenirs.  Chinese consumers will be able to experience iconic moments of happiness including replicas of the first Coca-Cola bottle from 1886, as well as Coca-Cola history displays and promotions at Tesco, Walmart, Sam’s Club, 7-Eleven, CRV Stores and Cinema Channels across the country.

His next stop is Australia, so I hope to have so photos to share from those events as our employees and bottler around the world continue to celebrate the anniversary.

Dance Mob At The World Of Coca-Cola

To help celebrate the 125th anniversary, on Saturday, May 7th, the World of Coca-Cola had a dance mob perform routine to the One Night Only song "Can You Feel It."  The dance was choreographed by KiKi Ely, a noted Atlanta choreographer and 125 people came to the World of Coke to perform.

I spoke with Brittaney Zellner who is Associate Digital Media Manager for the World of Coca-Cola and she gave me some of the behind the scenes details on how the performance was planned.  On April 26th, the World of Coke sent a notice via it's Facebook page that they were looking for dancers.  125 of the respondents were selected and were e-mailed a video of the dance choreography to learn.  On May 7th, right as the doors of the theatre opened to allow a large crowd into the hub, the dance began with a few people and took off as the crowd of dancers swelled.

Enjoy the video and let me know what you think.

 

 

Coca-Cola Guitar

Readers of the blog know I love guitars.  I have featured the Fender guitar that One Night Only played at the concert last weekend several time on this site and wrote a post two years ago about a guitar made out of recycled material by a high-school student.  I received a note from Mat Pham who wrote about guitar he had just made.  I love his account and his creativity.  Here is Matt's story.

Ever since I was six I have been consuming Coca-Cola, not only in just a drinking way, but in the life perspective way. I have made numerous things out of Coke products or displaying the Coca-Cola name, whether back in the day for art class or just for fun too prove I can. Recently, a project I had just finished was an electric Coca-Cola guitar made out of all Coca-Cola products. It basically consists of three cut out Coca-Cola (24 can) cardboard cases which provided the hardness of the guitar body and head, at which I would use three (18 can) Coca-Cola cases with the box logos to give it that outside appeal. For the neck I simply just glued 3 Coca-Cola cans stack with two board pieces on the side, outlined it a Coca-Cola label header so it could still remain red and taped it with red vinyl electrical tape for added support. As for the strings, I just used fishing strings tied to pop can tabs and created holes in the head and base where inside the guitar I have all the strings attached to a piece of cardboard holding all of them in place. The whole guitar is held together by glue, used by a glue gun, and overall the project took about 8 - 10 hours to create. I was inspired by a mix of the Coca-Cola electric guitar I've seen being used by One Night Only on the Coca-Cola Archives facebook site and for the purpose of Coca-Cola's 125th birthday, I felt like since Coca-Cola has given me so much originality over all of my life, that I would give them something original back in return. Happy birthday Coca-Cola !!!! and enjoy.

Fantastic New Painting For 125th Anniversary

I wanted to share a photograph of a series of new paintings we commissioned artist Steve Penley to paint to celebrate our 125th anniversary.  You may recall Steve's work was on display at the Pop Culture Gallery of the World of Coca-Cola during our second year of operation and was a huge success.  These seven painting show highlights from our history and stretches 42 feet long by 10 feet tall.

When we installed the display at our headquarters yesterday, it created quite a traffic jam with admiring spectators stopping to view the art.  The mural will be installed at the World of Coca-Cola in June for everyone to enjoy.  Steve stopped by to see it today and took a minute to pose in this photo with me.

Media, Media Everywhere!

As we approach our 125th anniversary this Sunday, May 8th, our Media Relations group has organized a three day event for offices around the world to invite their local journalist to visit Atlanta and witness the celebrations.  Over 125 media members from around the world are attending the event.  The schedule kicked off last night as Phil presented a historical overview of the Company followed by tours of the World of Coke and a fantastic reception.

One of the media outlets, Novy TV, sent the two host of their morning show, Wake Up to film a segment in the Archives earlier in the week.  The group is shown above resting on the American Idol couch.  Shown left to right are journalist Maryna Grankina, the two host of the program Oleksandr Pedan and Olha Freimut and cameraman Oleksandr Melenevskyi.

Too bad I don't get Ukranian TV to see the special.