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Client: Coca-Cola
Creative Agency: Armchair Media

For summer '05, Armchair Media was given a challenge by Coca-Cola: create a web experience designed to flaunt M5 -- Coca-Cola's five new "it" bottles and the five brilliant short films that inspired each design. The goal was nothing short of spectacular -- entice young trendsetters to seek out Coke in chic spots where the brand isn't traditionally part of the nightlife experience. The Armchairs started buzzing with energy for their task. The Coca-Cola bottle had transformed into a sleek, aluminum wonder, so promoting it was going to take some evolutionary thinking as well. After coming up with a concept, Armchair Media assembled a fresh multi-disciplinary team of graphic designers, animators, Flash artists and sound designers. Skills and talent had to be tight to create the caliber of web experience that Coca-Cola was expecting. The site needed to be relatable to a global audience, yet untraditional enough for a cynical demographic.

There are short films to watch, music to hear and bottles to gawk at. It’s all brought to you by the world's elite motion graphic agencies and forward thinking musicians: The Designers Republic & Citizen Bird; MK12 & Guided by Voices; Lobo & The Flaming Lips; Caviar & Towa Tei; Rex & Tennant McKay with Fischerspooner.
-- ArmchairMedia.com

This site deserves its buzz. It's evocative of many things, including The Beatles' "Yellow Submarine," Terry Gilliam's old Monty Python animations, and (of a more recent vintage) the Nike/Gawker "Art of Speed" campaign and the "Jack in the Box" TV spots (particularly the Japanese "Milkyway" by Caviar and Towa Tei -- the music is playing in the background as I write this). It's a neat branding exercise that nonetheless is in keeping with the Coke brand that I've grown up with -- am I dating myself by finding myself reminded of the "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing" TV spot from back when Brontosauri roamed the earth? The viral component is well done also, particularly because the site is up front and refreshingly clear about its privacy policy: "Sign in or do a quick signup to download high-resolution versions of the M5 Movies. We promise not to share your info with anyone."
 
The site is, however, slightly obscure. I wanted a link where I'd be grounded in the fact that there are new Coca-Cola bottles coming out -- I was on the site for several minutes before I saw the "Swallow the Science" link that took me to the site where they spelled out that new aluminum bottles are coming soon.
 
I'm definitely looking forward to the Flaming Lips video. 
-- Brad Berens, executive editor, iMedia Communications, Inc.

At first I was a bit confused by this site. Actually, I still am.
 
When the pre-loader began, I was intrigued. Just using a timeline from four million B.C. to today instead of a "xx percent done" suggested that there was a lot of thought put into every detail of this execution. But I'm still searching for the "optimism" that is the theme of this M5 campaign.
 
The site moves smoothly, but not quick enough not to lose a causal web surfer. Switching between day and night mode was a nice touch, too, that really showed off the intricate designs of the bottles in full color and in day-glo mode. But I'm not convinced that I'd really explore this site if one of my friends just passed it along virally. The bottles are cool, but........
 
While it pains me to publicly admit that I've watched the Brady Bunch movies more than once, a lot of the animation reminds me of "A Very Brady Sequel" when Carol's first husband eats some poison mushrooms. Very Partridge Family. Five different design firms from around the world, yet the designs all seem remarkably similar to me. The site features a lot of extras about the bands, the design groups and offers some desktop wallpaper, but I'm still confused about the message.
 
Moving into the video short story section didn't clear much up for me either. The videos were interesting at first, and I really enjoyed the track from Guided By Voices. While looking hard for "optimism" in the videos, you could make an argument for a few of the images being optimistic -- a sunflower, a girl putting a snowball in the freezer, and some colored bubble-headed people spelling out "Life" and "Love" and "Evolution" -- but its a bit of a stretch. Optimism? Really? Maybe something got lost in the translation. And how come only three of the five videos are playable? Didn't this site launch a month ago?
 
Overall, this site just doesn't work for me. Maybe I'm not as cool as I used to be. Hell, maybe I never was. Or maybe not trying to be cool is, in fact, the secret to my uber-coolness. But I still have questions. What, exactly, is M5? Is it the "new, new Coke?" And why can't I buy it anywhere? I'd head out to a cool lounge for the launch of a new vodka, but not to see some new soda packaging. Am I missing something here? Am I just not cool enough to get it? Thanks, Coke. I feel like I just got picked last in gym class.
-- Corey Kronengold, account executive, Soho Digital

Ok. I just don’t quite get it. Everyone from Joe Jaffe on down is gushing about Coke’s new M5 campaign. The most negative thing said seems to be that it owes some of its coolness to Converse’s campaigns. Coke’s only mandate was apparently to “demonstrate coolness”. Certainly not to sell soft drinks or any “traditional” advertising goal. But to me it seems arty and obscure as some art school performance art piece. Worst offender is a video clip (for some reason the site sometimes refers to the short videos -- most of which are animated music videos -- as “video short stories”) titled "The Evolution of Evolution," which  manages to be both pretentious and portentious at the same time.

Only an aluminum clad Coke bottle makes any reference to the Coke Brand. Apparently five star design firms created unique limited run cans of Coke and also were involved in selecting music videos (let's not call them video short stories, please) to accompany them. You select from the five by clicking on bunches of feathers that move around as you mouse them. As I’m slow, it took me some time to figure out that this was in fact a clickable map of the world and the feathers were continents. You might be quicker. My favorite video, I must admit, was “Joy” by a band called Citizen Bird. In the fine print we were told that Citizen Bird was aka Silverbullit in Europe and recorded for Stinky Records (a Division of Stinkyco Inc.). Coke and Stinkyco. The internet does make for strange bed-fellows.
-- Bob Heyman, chief search officer, Mediasmith, Inc.