相比起单纯的商品推销,当下营销更注重“产品文化”的推销,因为文化渗透所产生的效力更持久,精明的商家深谙此理。“畅爽开怀”,这是可口可乐公司在营销策略上开辟的一条新路——对自己的品牌只字不提,而是通过音乐将自己的“产品文化”广而“播”之。当你哼着那些琅琅上口的小调时,那应该是商家高兴的时候了,因为这就是“产品文化”的力量所在。
——Mac
文字难度：★★★★☆
Commercials for Coca-Cola are sometimes so shrouded by storytelling that viewers can make a game of brand-spotting. The game—let’s call it “Spot the Coke Can”—takes a particularly long time during the cinematic spots in movie theaters.
可口可乐的广告片有时太注重故事情节了,观众在看的时候得来一个品牌竞猜游戏。我们把这个游戏叫“找可乐罐罐”吧,在电影院里玩这游戏尤其耗时。
In the global advertising campaign called Open Happiness that was introduced in January, the Coca Cola Company takes the game to a logical last step by 1)omitting any reference to the brand in a 2)catchy song it created and sold last winter.
今年一月,可口可乐启动了一个名为“畅爽开怀”的全球广告攻略。其中所采用的琅琅上口的广告歌是去年冬天创作并推出的,歌中没有任何有关可乐品牌的指称。此举把“猜品牌”这一游戏推到了合理的最后一步。
With the title Open Happiness, the song is an advertisement by association.
这首名为《畅爽开怀》的歌靠的就是“联想”作广告。
Coca-Cola signed a crew of well-known band members and performers to record the single. It also produced several different language versions for other countries.
为了录制这支广告单曲,可口可乐公司与不少知名的乐队成员及艺人签约; 公司还为其在不同国家的市场制作了几种不同的语言版本。
On Thursday morning, the song will take another promotional step forward when 3)MTV is expected to show the 4)premiere of the music video for Open Happiness. Coca-Cola said it did not pay MTV for the showing.
这个周四早上,《畅爽开怀》这首歌的音乐视频将在MTV上首播,这把宣传活动又推进一步。可口可乐称公司自己并没有为这次播放向MTV支付任何费用。
As is the case with the song, viewers of the video will be hard-pressed to spot the Coca-Cola brand. The Coke reference “is so super-fast that you really have to be looking for it,” said a Coke spokesman.
与歌曲本身的情况如出一辙,看到这个音乐视频的观众需要使劲去找“可口可乐”这个牌子。可口可乐公司的发言人称,在视频中,提及“可口可乐”的部分“飞快闪现,你确实得用心去找。”
Umut Ozaydinli, the global music marketing manager for the Coca-Cola Company, said the 5)upbeat song pulled consumers into the Open Happiness campaign, rather than pushing it on them like traditional advertising.
可口可乐公司的全球音乐营销经理乌穆特•奥萨迪利说,这首欢快的歌曲把消费者吸引到“畅爽开怀”的宣传活动当中,而不是像传统的广告手段那样把产品宣传强加于人们身上。
“Coca-Cola is such a strong and magical brand that we can come out with something with no branding or very little branding,” he said in a telephone interview from Turkey on Wednesday, where the company plans to release a Turkish-language version of the song. “All the communications we are doing around the song enable consumers to connect the song with the brand.”
他周三在土耳其接受电话访问时表示:“可口可乐是一个影响力非常大,让人不可思议的品牌。因此,我们有足够的底气在做广告时不做品牌宣传,或只做少量的品牌宣传,而我们围绕这首歌所作的宣传,足以做使消费者把这首歌与‘可口可乐’这个品牌联系起来。”可口可乐公司正准备在土耳其推出这首歌的土耳其语版本。
While Coca-Cola has produced songs in the past—before the Summer Olympics in Beijing last year, the company released eight song remixes by DJs — Open Happiness stands out because the company is charging for the single on 6)iTunes and Amazon.com. The musical strategy may remind some of I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing, the 7)jingle-turned-pop-hit that was first featured as a part of Coca-Cola’s classic 1971 commercial known as Hilltop. In the commercial, young people sang about wanting to “buy the world a Coke.”
可口可乐公司之前也曾制作过广告歌曲,譬如在去年北京夏季奥运会前,他们就曾推出八首由DJ混录的歌曲,但此次面世的《畅爽开怀》显得尤为特别,因为它在iTunes和亚马逊网站上是以单曲来收费的。这种音乐广告策略让一些人不禁想起可口可乐公司1971年推出的经典电视广告《在山顶上》里那首《我想教全世界唱首歌》,最初只是广告歌,后来成了流行曲。在那个广告里,年轻人唱出了想要“请全世界喝一杯可乐”的心声。
“I think they have been looking for something that has that kind of impact,” said John Rudolph, the chief executive of 8)Bug Music, which licenses songs for commercial uses.
八格音乐制作公司,对于歌曲作商业用途这一举动予以许可,而其行政总裁约翰•鲁道夫就这一活动发表了意见:“我觉得他们一直在寻找某种能达到相同效果的东西。”
Music is, of course, an important part of many advertisers’ messages. Last year, for instance, the R&B singer 9)Chris Brown released a hit song, Forever, that doubled as a jingle for the 10)Doublemint brand of gum. The song even incorporated the product’s slogan, “double your pleasure, double your fun,” into the lyrics.
音乐当然是许多广告商要传递的信息里重要的一环。去年,比如R&B歌手克里斯•布朗就推出了一首名为《永远》的大热歌曲,同时这也是绿箭口香糖的广告歌。这首歌甚至把该口香糖产品的广告口号“双重快乐,双重乐趣”融入到歌词里面。
Mr. Rudolph noted that few companies are able to afford the production of an original song that doesn’t even mention the brand. But if any company can, it’s Coca-Cola.
鲁道夫先生指出,专门制作一首原创歌曲而曲中甚至连品牌的影子也没有,这可是很少公司花得起钱去做的。如果说有哪家公司做得到,那就是可口可乐公司了。
For Open Happiness, the company collaborated with 11)Atlantic Records and signed many artists, like 12)Brendon Urie of 13)Panic at the Disco, 14)Travis McCoy of 15)Gym Class Heroes, and 16)Janelle Monae and so on. Ms. Monae, a Grammy-nominated singer and songwriter, said it “was promoting a good cause,” happiness, that all people could agree on.
为了制作《畅爽开怀》,可口可乐公司与大西洋唱片公司合作,并为此与不少艺人签约,如迪斯科恐慌乐队的布兰登•尤里、体操课英雄乐队的特拉维斯•麦科伊和珍妮艾尔•莫内等等。莫内小姐是位歌手兼歌曲创作人,曾获格莱美奖提名,她表示,“这首歌宣传的动机不错”,追寻快乐,这是所有人都赞同的事。
Being able to work with fellow artists and “write the words and lyrics that we like without feeling like the company was saying, ‘Sing about Coca-Cola,’ it made it more true to my core values,” she said.
她表示,有机会与其他艺人合作,并且“创作我们自己喜欢的歌词,没有感觉到可口可乐公司要求我们要‘为可口可乐歌唱’,这种做法更符合我的核心价值观。”
The lyrics for the Open Happiness song are as sweet and 17)bubbly as the soft drink. “C’mon and lift me up, it’s a brand new day, open up a lil’ happiness today, so I can be someone new,” goes the chorus. The single was released in the United States in March. Tying the music video to the Coke commercials for the campaign is the same 18)five-note melody.
《畅爽开怀》的歌词就像可乐那般甜丝丝的,让人欢腾,其副歌唱到:“来吧,让我振奋起来,这是崭新的一天,开启今天的一点快乐,我的面貌将焕然一新。”这首歌已经于今年三月在美国本土发行。在可口可乐的这次宣传活动中,广告的音乐视频配上的正是这首五音旋律歌曲。
Mr. Ozaydinli speculated that the lack of an in-your-face Coke message is “one of the key reasons” consumers have shown interest in the song. On 19)MySpace, it has been streamed more than 600,000 times.
奥萨迪利先生推测,歌中没有直接提到可乐是它能够引起消费者兴趣的“一个关键因素”。在“聚友”网站上,这首歌的播放次数超过了60万。
According to Coca-Cola, the single reached the No. 1 spot on the top 100 music download chart of Baidu.com, a leading Chinese web site.
可口可乐公司表示,在中国主要的搜索引擎“百度”上,《畅爽开怀》这首单曲名列前一百首下载歌曲排行榜的榜首。
But it has not found as many fans in the United States: it reached No. 37 on Apple iTunes pop chart for a short period of time, the company said, and no longer appears on the iTunes lists.
但在美国本土,其粉丝人数就相对少了。可口可乐公司说,歌曲在苹果公司iTunes的流行榜上曾短期内达到了第37位,而现在,这首歌已经不在iTunes下载列表上了。
Mr. Ozaydinli acknowledged that the song did not perform as well in the United States, but said that “chart success is only one element of the equation.” Coca-Cola said it would consider producing future songs for the Open Happiness campaign in the coming months. A half-French, half-English-language version of the tune will be released in time for the Winter Olympics in 20)Vancouver next year.
奥萨迪利先生承认,这首歌在美国的表现确实一般,但“在排行榜上的成功与否”只是营销攻势的一个组成部分。可口可乐公司表示,公司会考虑在未来的数月里继续为“畅爽开怀”宣传活动录制不同的歌曲。这首歌的一个英法语掺半的版本将会于明年温哥华举办的冬奥会期间推出。
