Home to more than 200 nationalities, the UAE is one of the most culturally diverse gatherings of races, ethnicities and socioeconomic backgrounds from around the world.
Expatriates make up nearly 87 percent of the population in the UAE, outnumbering Emirati locals by a ratio of almost 5:1. Living and working in the UAE, however, is not as glitzy and glamorous as many would have you believe.
In the UAE, migrant workers’ lives are often filled with trials and hardship with many of them earning money to send back home to their families.
Focusing on this harsh reality, Coca-Cola launched a touching campaign to help.
As part of their ‘Wish upon a Coke’ campaign, Coca-Cola Middle East set up several bright red “Wish Booths” across Dubai in labor camps, parks, cricket fields and shopping malls. Inside the booths, workers were asked to make a wish for their families and loved ones back home using Coke bottle caps instead of coins for a chance to have the company make them come true.
“I’m lucky I got the change to come to Dubai. Working here takes care of my family. But I really miss them,” said one of the workers in Coca-Cola’s latest #WishUponACoke wish booth advertisement.
Captured in a beautiful, tear-inducing video, the #WishUponACoke team made four workers’ wishes a reality.
“We all wish we could do more for our families But sometimes, we need a little help,” the text reads in the advertisement.
In India, the Coke team helped rebuild Ashraf Alam’s parents’ roof that was severely damaged in a storm and assisted Mohamed Rizwan’s children to complete their education.
In Pakistan, the team helped Mohamed Rashid’s elderly parents better irrigate their farmland.
In the Philippines, the team helped Rhodora’s elderly mother set up a grocery store that would allow her to easily and more effectively sell fish rather than walk and sell door-to-door.
The campaign also include an under the cap promotion across Coca-Cola, Coke Light and Coke Zero bottles and cans where people could win free meals and cokes, airline tickets and a range of electronic products, all of which could be shipping back home to their loved ones by Coca-Cola.
Conceived by the Y&R ad agency in Dubai, the Wish Upon a Coke campaign is the latest initiative to associate hope and happiness with the brand by sharing a powerful message and bringing families together.
This isn’t the first time Coca-Cola has strived to promote itself as a family-friendly company that brings happiness to people around the world.
In 1971, the company launched its iconic “I’d like to Buy the World a Coke” ad during the height of the Cold War singing an anthem on a hillside in Italy about bringing harmony and peace to the world and sharing a coke with a neighbor.
“That was the basic idea: to see Coke not as it was originally designed to be—a liquid refresher—but as a tiny bit of commonality between all peoples, a universally liked formula that would help to keep them company for a few minutes,” wrote Bill Backer, who was the creative director on the Coca-Cola account for McCann-Erickson at the time.
More recently, Coca-Cola’s ad campaign “Taking Home Happiness” showed the company handing out Coke bottles to travelers at the Dubai International Airport who were heading off to various destinations for the holidays, but were unable to take home gifts for loved ones due to overweight luggage. The labels on these Coke bottles doubled as an excess baggage tag for “extra 5 kilos of happiness.”
Although the campaign is part of a marketing campaign, it is a gentle reminder that advertisements can be based on social good. It is also an example of the power of technology and media to impart a powerful positive message that encourages individuals that change is possible even through a simple gesture of kindness.
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