RC Cola debuts sequel to the weirdest ad we've seen all year

Last week, we discussed the weirdest ad we’d seen all year, RC Cola’s bizarre family saga about a kid born with glasses on his back and a mom with an RC bottle for a head. Just in time for Christmas, the soda brand has dropped a sequel worthy of its predecessor. The new installment centers on a young band, hard at work practicing their music in a garage. In the middle of it all, however, the lead singer decides she’s just not feeling it and she just can’t go on. She admits to her bandmates that she’s always felt like she’s not one of them, an outsider. “What do you mean?” one of her bandmates asks. “We’ve been together for five years!” “I don’t feel like I’m part of the group,” she says, and then finally reveals to the band her secret and pulls off an appendage (just like the mom in the previous spot). Her bandmates scoff and then unveil their own secret—which just might even be more nuts than hers, and which explains why from the beginning, the young woman was destined to lead their group. The Filipino campaign was created out of Manila agency Gigil and has been targeting the Gen Z audience with out-there humor. It centers on the theme of “basta,” a Tagalog word that loosely translates to “whatever,” an attitude that reflects the Gen Z mindset. “They live in the moment,” Gigil Managing Director Jake Yrastorza told Ad Age about the first spot. “They don’t need a list of reasons before they do something. They can do or buy something because—well, you know, whatever. There’s no need to explain. We appropriated that attitude and made the brand stand for it." Despite the campaign’s unconventional approach, it didn’t take much for the client to approve it. “We were all laughing the whole time the team was presenting because we loved it, too,” says James Loverio, head of marketing at ARC Refreshments Corporation, RC Cola’s parent in the Philippines. “It was simply spot-on. We approved it during the first presentation with no revision. It was quite easy because we really wanted to create characters that reflected the mentality of our target market and if one really looks at the overall sentiment on social media, it is evident that the first film was an overwhelming success. The Gen Z drinkers loved it. We were delighted to hear comments on how RC Cola managed to create a space for itself in Pinoy [Filipino] pop culture, and we hope to do the same with this second film.” Like the first ad, the second one has quickly gained traction on social media. Within one hour of its release it saw 63,000 views, 9,000 reactions, 804 comments and 7,600 shares on Facebook organically. A day after its debut on YouTube, it received more than 170,000 views and 1,400 likes, and on Twitter it became the top trending topic within three and half hours of launch, which was faster than the first film.

RC Cola debuts sequel to the weirdest ad we've seen all year

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