Diet Coke - Little Black Dress Campaign

I'm always interested in the brands are interact with consumers and provide an overall experience in line with the brand values. When done well, consumers enjoy these moments naturally, nothing feels forced. Sometimes the fit is so perfect that the brand's presence is able to enhance the consumers activities without getting in the way. To achieve this there must be a logical synergy between the brand, audience, message, medium and environment. The Little Black Dress campaign by Diet Coke is one of the best examples I've seen of getting all these elements perfectly in sync. 

Coca-Cola has always been on my dream brand list - for me it epitomises Saatchi & Saatchi's "Lovemark" concept:

Lovemarks transcend brands. They deliver beyond your expectations of great performance. Like great brands, they sit on top of high levels of respect - but there the similarities end.
Lovemarks reach your heart as well as your mind, creating an intimate, emotional conjunction that you just can’t live without. Ever. 

The Coca-Cola family of brands is so massive (Again topping Interbrand's Top 100 brands in 2010, with an estimated brand value of US$70.452B!) it would be tempting to relax a little. But Coca-Cola is always looking to engage with consumers in novel ways that reinforce brand messages and a recently stumbled across details of there association with 2009 Air New Zealand Fashion Week in New Zealand. 


Diet Coke - The Little Black Dress
This is brand immersion at it's finest, perfect product fit and spot on with the relevance and target market. Also a nice layering of the aspirational/fantasy-based and achievable/reality-based sides of fashion.  


1. Diet Coke - LBD - Runway Show 
Diet Coke put on a full catwalk show as part of the 2009 Air NZ Fashion Show inviting top designers from New Zealand and Australia to create three garments based on the classic LBD and the Diet Coke "silhouette" or bottle shape. Get the very best in fashion to design beautiful dresses based on your product - pure genius! 

Adrian Hailwood

Alice McCall

Kate Sylvester

Alpha 60

Marnie Skillings

Juliette Hogan

Runway photos sourced from Thread.


2. Diet Coke - LBD - Westfield Mall Store 
Again Coke teamed up with well-known fashion labels to help build a brand association between Diet Coke and the Little Black Dress. Coke asked fashion stores within the mall to supply two LBD's to the "Style Zone"  - according to Westfield this was highly successful for all involved, Coke had 15,000 product samples over a 5 weeks and retailers who supplied garments reported a positive effect too.  

I love this campaign and it's definitely a level I will be holding for any future sponsorship and PR work I do - my only question, how did it take me this long to hear about it? Did it not generate much publicity? Or was I under a rock for the '09 Fashion Week?