Coca-Cola displays messages of progress on football pitches across Australia + New Zealand in new campaign via WPP Open X/AKQA + Ogilvy PR
With the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 moving to a nail-biting conclusion and set to become the biggest female sporting event in history, Coca-Cola has unveiled an innovative campaign, developed by WPP Open X/AKQA and Ogilvy PR, to build on the legacy of the tournament and celebrate the changing narrative occurring in women’s football. In football fields across both co-host nations, Australia and New Zealand, Coca-Cola has displayed and activated five powerful statements showing the progress being made.
Each statement takes a common misconception around women in football found today in online conversation and contrasts it with the powerful – and more positive – reality of today’s game.
Two messages in fields located in Australia and New Zealand share the inspiring stories of Team Coca-Cola players Ellie Carpenter and Katie Bowen. Ellie’s story is one of defying the odds and breaking through barriers to achieve greatness in sport, while Katie emphasises the power of believing in magic, highlighting the remarkable milestone of participating in her fourth FIFA Women’s World Cup.
The remaining messages celebrate the growing participation in women’s football around the world, the unprecedented growth of the game, the role models the game has created and the record-breaking number of viewers that the tournament has achieved this year.
The campaign also features a stunning video created with drones to showcase the state-of-the-art technology used to create the messages on the field. Using a gentle stream of air, each blade of grass is bent to create a shadow effect on the pitches that appears for up to 48 hours, without damaging the turf.
The six game-changing statements include:
A farm girl will never go far in professional football.
A farm girl is playing for her country in front of 75,000 home fans.
This game is not suitable for women.
This game now has more than 29 million women suiting up to play every year.
It is time to question women’s football.
It’s time to stand up and cheer for the fastest growing female sport in the world.
There are football mums, but not mums who play football.
There are football mums, and now there are more than 25 proud mums playing football for their country.
It’s women’s football. No one will follow it
It’s women’s football. A record 2 billion people just followed it together.
Katie Bowen won’t make it far at the international level
Katie Bowen just played for her country in her 4th FIFA Women’s World Cup.
Says Kate Miller, marketing director at Coca-Cola Australia: “Coca-Cola has been supporting the FIFA Women’s World Cup since the inaugural tournament in 1991 and we are really proud to celebrate the success of this year’s tournament, which is not only breaking records but is also breaking down long-held beliefs in society about women in sports. Our latest campaign challenges the many misconceptions around women’s sports and shows the new positive reality and celebrates the professional athletes who have inspired us all.”
Building on its legacy of supporting the FIFA Women’s World Cup and coinciding with the final matches this week, The Coca-Cola Company is hosting a one-day “Level the Playing Field” diversity, equity, and inclusion summit in Sydney on Friday 18 August, featuring influential business and societal changemakers.
19 Comments
Wallpaper, but on grass
This is super clever and inspiring
Just to really drive home that this wasn’t just a really good photoshop job
Great & inspiring work!!! 🙌
All I want to say to these brands is – where the fuck were you two years ago, let-alone 10?
We partnered with Australia’s Matilda’s and paid them to drink our black fizz. They then sweated 10x than usual during practice, over a dirt field filled with grass seeds. Weeks later, the grass sprouted then we used a fake grass blowing machine that groundskeeper Harry drove to puff this PR release into existence. This is growing belief. This is Coca Cola.
There is 0 chance they actually did this. The detail on the player is totally unachievable.
Meanwhile, refresh yourself with a drink that will probably give you diabetes.
It’s about time!
This project truly ignites a spark of inspiration within me. It’s undeniable that women’s football has faced its fair share of negative criticism and biases over the years. However, what truly stands out is the collective effort being poured into reshaping the perception of women’s football.
This is actually nice work 💪
Good to see Coke who have sponsored the Women’s Tournament for so long do something a little more provocative. Nice work
my question is who has seen this? this is why brands should actually use experiential agencies rather than creative agencies.
Everyone’s so quick to rag on production value or whatever. But Coke has done something fresh and innovative here and for a good cause. Plus they explain that it’s not photoshopped it’s that techy lawnmower thing. Some people just seem jealous…
Didn’t Thinkerbell do something similar several years ago for Jetstar?
So we’ve entered the age where the mock up is the ad. If they really did this, then where is the footage of the printing process and the machinery used. All we see is these badly shopped images, some on the same oval, along with an image of an ordinary mower with some of the worst Photoshopping I’ve ever seen.
Reminds me of the fake Pepsi and fast food campaign from a while back. At least they attempted (and failed) to make some realistic behind the scenes images.
Its the diagram of ‘light hits grass’ for me. hahahahahah! DED like the grass.
More insufferable unnecessarily combative woke garbage cooking up problems that don’t exist.
-10 points from Gryffindor for the deceitful Photoshop job too. Nobody’s buying this lol.
Massive corporation piggybacks off a cause they don’t give a crap about to benefit themselves when there’s no absolutely risk involved for them anymore.
Heres Tom with the weather.