Creativity was afraid to run this one.

Okay, if all this blahhg is is a repository for old letters and other junk, then here's another one. If anyone read my posts, I would point out that the spot in question in this letter ran in early 06, but not lately. Perhaps I shamed Coke and W&K into pulling it. Oh wait, the letter never ran in Creativity so I couldn't have shamed anybody into doing anything. Well, I'm sure if it had run, it would have shamed them into pulling it.



Creativity Editor,

Are you kidding? How do you justify wasting space in "The Work" section with that Coke spot featuring the guy taking sips of his self-serve Coke and then refilling it because it's oh so good that he can't resist cheating a little?
Rather than being a resonant, slice-of-real-life moment in the daily life of a Coke devotee, as I'm sure the creators of this spot intended, it only reveals how little insight into their target audience's day-to-day Coke experience they actually possess.
As any truly committed soft drinker will tell you, we live in a world of free refills, especially in self-serve contexts. This is not news. It's been like this almost everywhere for many years. That's why, the first time I saw this spot (could it have been during the Superbowl?), I was jaw-droppingly baffled. If it had been a retro spot taking place circa 1960 or so, okay, I might buy it. But if the act featured in this spot was ever even slightly naughty, it ceased to be so not long after the authors of the offending spot were born.
Personally, I never walk away from the spiggot at whatever gas station, convenience store or fast food haven I'm patronizing without taste-testing my Diet Coke to make sure the mix is within specifications. Having done so, I refill my Super Big Gulp before exiting. Who doesn't? Because, with the advent of the age of free refills, even those retail environments where refills might cost you 50 cents or whatever, like convenience stores and some fast food places, the concept of " a Coke" as a discrete, absolute unit within the self-serve, fountain context, is so blurry that taking liberties with that unit has been rendered ethically benign.
Ergo, the guy in the spot is not getting away with anything. No rules are being bent. Being bad can't feel good if you're not being bad. There is no guilty pleasure to be had in the act of tasting and refilling, since so many self-serve establishments have a sign saying "Free Refills" unless they don't bother any more because it is so universally understood.
Wieden & Kennedy is one of the few pillars of great advertising still standing. What has happened to them? Don't they have account planners? Or a client that knows, or belongs to, the target audience? Because, clearly, the creators of this spot don't. I can only think of one explanation for this botch job. All of the people involved in the creation of this spot must have assumed that, because there are no free refills on grand lattes or obscure imported beers or wines by the glass, the same must surely be true of soft drinks.

Stoically,

Jim Morris
The Communicaterer