‘Coke Zero Auditions’ Campaign—No script, No props, No Sugar

Coke Zero's latest ad campaign is an ingenious audition setup, where the auditions weren't for the campaign—they were the campaign.

With zero props, zero scripts, and zero sugar—the new funny Coke Zero campaign shows new aspirational actors auditioning about their favourite drink, and the product is only mimed.

Ogilvy India, as part of WPP Open X, launched a minimalist new campaign for Coca-Cola Zero, which emphasises only the actor’s performance, making the act centric, and the product completely off-screen.

The two-minute campaign film, captioned as ‘Coke Zero Auditions: Zero Props, Zero Scripts, Zero Sugar’, featured wannabe actors who were asked to perform the experience of sipping a drink, imagining it was a Coke Zero. But little did they know—instead of casting for a future ad, the auditions themselves werethe ad.

Sukesh Nayak, Chief Creative Officer, Ogilvy India, said, “We realised that the biggest inspiration lies only in the name ‘Coke Zero’ and in the soul of the word ‘zero’. Hence, we designed a campaign by not showing the product at all, only the impact of the word ‘Zero’.

Grishma Singh, Vice President, Marketing, Coca-Cola India and Southwest Asia, has this to say. ‘Coca-Cola is known globally for its taste and iconicity, and Coke Zero is known for all the same delicious Coke taste with zero calories. This campaign places the simplicity of bringing the delicious taste of a Coke Zero to life without the usual taglines, direct messaging, or the usual marketing strategies that emphasise the product picture.

The campaign also involves OOH campaigning featuring plain white backgrounds and actors sipping the drink—in which the product placement is clearly not important.

This campaign, conceptualized by Ogilvy India, plays off a universally well-known ‘method acting’ routine to present the product but with a twist, in a unique, minimalistic, simple and striking way.

The bottom line—Sometimes it’s the simplest of ideas that bring out the most of the magic.

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