Coca-Cola crushed its logo for series of ‘Recycle Me’ billboards

Ogilvy New York campaign, rolling out in Latin America, involved extracting images of the brand’s logo from real crushed cans

Published On
Apr 23, 2024
Coca-Cola billboard showing a crushed Coke logo

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Coca-Cola’s logo is indestructible, remaining instantly recognizable even after being crushed. That’s clear from the brand’s new out-of-home campaign, running in Latin America, which features crushed versions of the iconic logo as a reminder to recycle.

Developed by WPP Open X and led by Ogilvy New York, the campaign sourced its imagery from actual crushed cans. The brand said it used a variety of techniques to crush the cans, including mechanical presses and vacuums, then extracted the imagery from there.

Every single poster in the campaign is unique, featuring a different crushed logo.

Coke "Recycle Me" poster

The campaign is running on OOH and DOOH sites in Argentina, Brazil and Mexico, as well as in print advertising and on social channels. It’s expected to expand globally soon.

Just like everyone does right before they recycle a can of Coke. Each poster is unique and made from crushing cans in fascinating ways like vacuums and mechanical presses. The “Recycle Me” series is rolling out globally, starting with our friends in LATAM.

 

The effort supports the company's “World Without Waste” strategy, promoting the idea that sustainability is a collective responsibility and encouraging recycling on a mass scale. 

“At Coca-Cola, we aim to have a world without waste,” said Islam ElDessouky, global VP of creative strategy and content at Coca-Cola. “We are working to innovate our products toward our global goal of making 100% of our packaging recyclable by 2025. We also aim to collect and recycle a bottle or can for each one we sell by 2030, and we have a unique opportunity to use our marketing to send a powerful message and bring consumers along our journey. ‘Recycle Me’ calls for us all to recycle wherever possible.”

Crushing the logo is the latest example of Coke embracing imperfection in its brand assets. We saw this last month with another OOH campaign that elevated amateur renderings of the logo, many painted by shopkeepers worldwide, and put them on billboards.

Coke "Recycle Me" poster

Coke "Recycle Me" poster