Have you seen this incredible video yet? You’ll probably have to watch it a few times to catch all the details. A young couple has a baby, and then every few seconds there are references to various aspects of parenting that every parent out there will be able to relate to: stepping on the child’s toys in the dark, the baby sleeping horizontal in the middle of the bed, how your house becomes dominated with things for the child, etc. As the father of two small children (with a third on the way), it was funny, encouraging, and touching. With beautiful cinematography, music, and acting, it shows in just one minute how disruptive a child (particularly a first child) can be to the life of a young couple, yet the great joy, excitement, and love that he (and news of his coming sibling) can bring.
And it was made to sell sodas.
Coca Cola just launched a new drink in South America, Coca Cola Life, and this video was produced to promote it. “Having children is not just life’s most important moment, but the ultimate test to connecting with your best side,” the creative director of the video explained, according to Life News. “Coke Life is a new kind of Coke. We’re just starting to build this brand, setting up its world, its tone of voice. We were aiming for ‘emotional comedy’. The kind that makes you smile and weep at the same time.”
As marriage and fertility rates plummet, things like this video, with its quality, humor, and positivity, is exactly the sort of thing the Church should be producing as part of her evangelization of our dying culture.
But the Church didn’t. A marketing agency did. To sell sodas.
The Church that brought the world the Sistine Chapel, the Cologne Cathedral, and the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the Church with the most important task in the world – preaching the message of salvation for souls bound for an eternity in hell – has fallen to releasing comically inept pieces from its highest levels, while corporations interested in nothing more than making money create something beautiful. Just to sell sodas!
So what is Coca Cola doing that we’re not doing? I have no training in marketing, but I have at least two hunches:
1) They only work with the best. Coca Cola is not interested in good intentions in its advertising. It’s interested in producing things that are quality.
2) They spend the money. Good art costs money. Is it worth it? Coca Cola thinks it’s worth it to sell sodas.
If good art can be produced for sodas, it can be produced better for Jesus.
And today we celebrate...