Coca-Cola ditches its iconic label to send a powerful message during Ramadan

By Hyacinth Mascarenhas

“It takes 7 seconds to build a prejudice against someone’s appearance.”

In an effort to unify a region filled with more than 200 nationalities, Coca-Cola’s classic red cans will go unmarked in the Middle East this month to promote a world without labels and prejudices.

As part of a Ramadan-themed ad campaign entitled “Remove labels this Ramadan,” the limited-edition, label-free cans will carry the iconic Coke ribbon and the simple but powerful words: “Labels are for cans, not for people.”

Created by FP7 and Memac Ogilvy, the timely campaign launched with a heart-warming commercial in which a group of diverse-looking men are invited to an Iftar in the dark where they try to guess one another’s appearance only to have their preconceptions shattered when the lights come on.

“In the Middle East, a region with over 200 nationalities and a larger number of labels dividing people, these Coca-Cola cans send a powerful and timeless message that a world without labels is a world without differences,” FP7/DXB said in a statement. “And that we are all basically just the same—human.”

In the spirit of Ramadan, Coca-Cola Egypt has also announced that it will scrap its Ramadan TV advertising campaign and donate the money to help develop more than 100 poverty-stricken Egyptian villages instead. Rather than spending millions on primetime TV slots, the company will only post its video ads on social media.

The brilliant initiative also ties in with Coke’s global “Let’s take an extra second” campaign where people are challenged to overcome knee-jerk stereotypes and break down prejudices.

Posted on YouTube last week, the viral ad has already racked up more than 2 million views.

From a marketing standpoint, the concept is brilliant.

Still, Coca-Cola’s message is a subtle yet powerful message that resonates beyond borders, breaks barriers and encourages every one of us, within the Middle East and beyond, to dig a little deeper and look beyond our preconceptions when it comes to the people we meet, and hopefully, get to know better.

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