Previous Editions: 2011: Late Fall - Spring | 2010: Summer - Winter
2009: Late Summer - Early Summer - Winter | 2008: Summer - Spring | 2007: Winter

Home | About | Contact

The New World of Coke: A Narrative of Emotion as Brand Identity Bobby Schweizer World of Coca-Cola, Pemberton Place
Atlanta, GA
More photos on Flickr

The World of Coca-Cola opened May 24, 2007 in downtown Atlanta. Replacing its previous iteration with something grander, the World of Coca-Cola at Pemberton Place is more a themed attraction than a museum. Its primary goals are two-fold: convince people there is something special about Coca-Cola so that they form allegiances with the brand and then sell them merchandise. This cynical viewpoint, however, ignores how well crafted this experience is. The World of Coca-Cola is a strong rhetorical device that deserves to be looked at as a narrative experience.

A visit to The World of Coca-Cola is framed with the question “why do you drink Coke?” Standard answers might include, “I like the way it tastes” or “it’s refreshing.” These answers, while positive endorsements of the product, are not satisfactory for Coca-Cola. After all, what is to prevent a fan of Coca-Cola Classic from choosing a Pepsi instead? A person might have a preference for their brand of cola, but switch between companies based on what is convenient or perhaps what is on sale at the grocery store. To counteract this, advertisements for these sodas go beyond the product into identity branding. The World of Coke capitalizes on an aspect of branding that is not always easy to get across in a thirty second television commercial. Writing about narratives as virtual spaces, Marie-Laure Ryan describes the potentiality of media to make imaginative space. Examples like text and a music score have high levels of potential because they must be constructed and executed, whereas an image uses basic modes of perception. (Ryan 45) A bottle of Coca-Cola Classic, when used as a text, must be interpreted with a variety of senses. The World of Coca-Cola takes advantage of setting you in a physical environment in which to engage the product directly and then forges an emotional connection that elaborates on the experience of Coca-Cola the soda as a text. The World of Coke employs a variety of narrative techniques and technologies to obscure the advertising space, turn it into a venue of amusement and affect, and transform Coca-Cola from a product into a cultural experience.

The World of Coca-Cola is designed to be part amusement park and part amusement park attraction. Like an amusement park, the layout of the World of Coke is modeled after the Disneyland hub and spoke design, in which an entrance area opens up to a central lobby area from which you can access the many exhibits. However, much like a theme park attraction, the attendees experience a “pre-ride” staging area. The World of Coke begins with a queue, moves to a waiting area, moves again into a hosted waiting area, and is lastly introduced by a short film. Ideologically situated, this introductory structure uses a rhetorical narrative that allows Coca-Cola to preface the attendee’s exploration inside it’s venue with an overall theme: Coca-Cola is a universal affective experience.

In order to forge an emotional bond with the product the staging area sets up a series of rhetorical strategies to subconsciously guide the visitor’s experience. Coke-goers first wait outside the building in a line to buy tickets, followed by a separate line to get into the building with metal detectors and screeners. It is worthwhile to notice that this time is physically separated from the interior experience—waiting in line is not a part of the journey but rather a tedious formality divorced from the exhibit itself. The journey begins in a waiting area with giant Coke bottles from different places on the planet and a wall of photographs showcasing the diversity of the Coca-Cola product. the ideological reading encouraged by this room is of Coke as a shared experience common to all residents of the globe. When the doors from this antechamber open, people descend into the next room in which Coca-Cola is showcased as not only global, but historical. Coke advertisements from different countries are intertwined with Coke ephemera from different periods in United States history. Rhetorically, these collections are intended to immerse the patron temporally and spatially into the Coca-Cola universe. They can either latch onto a cultural connection or a memory of Coca-Cola advertising. Even if neither of these points grabs them, there is still an enthusiasm built up by the rest of the crowd that is carried into the next room in which the movie is shown.

“Inside the Happiness Factory: A Documentary” is the final framing device employed by Coca-Cola before you enter the non-linear space. It is a short computer animated film featuring the “behind the scenes” characters of the Coca-Cola process—the little creatures that operate the vending machine. The woman that introduced the film described it as an “out of this world factory.” It is intended as a place of “love, magic happiness, and excitement.” The ‘documentary’ is a story about how each Coke both is treated as unique and special, despite its mass production and ubiquitous presence. The world inside of the vending machine is not mechanical but organic. The creatures in this world talk about their love of Coke and the Coca-Cola Company. They share personal anecdotes and are constructed like real employees in a corporate video. Testimonials are perhaps the most common rhetorical technique used in the New World of Coke—examples of how Coke has impacted peoples’ lives or stories of fond memories are shared by the exhibit and are meant to elicit the telling of such stories by its visitors. When the film concludes the screen rises to reveal an exit at the front of the theater, funneling people into the main hall. The people have now become the quarters being dropped into the vending machine that is the World of Coke. The Coca-Cola Company has shaped expectations and perceptions of its visitors through all of this introductory material so that it doesn’t have to have as rigid a narrative through the non-linear parts of the exhibit that follow.

A wall of testimonials called “Coca-Cola Connections: Personal Stories of Inspiration” lines the lobby area of the hub that leads to the other exhibits. These testimonials are given through voice recordings on telephone handsets that are connected to life-sized photos of the speakers. The speakers range from children to grandparents, from Atlanta residents to Coke employees in foreign countries. Because the testimonials are given through handsets that can only be used by one person at a time, the visitors end up relaying these stories to the people they’re with. “Well he earned a scholarship from Coca-Cola and went to Morehouse College and then Harvard.” The short cords of the handsets also bring you physically close to the images of the people so that they are not media-delivered advertisements but rather intimate exchanges.

“Milestones of Refreshment” is a historical journey through the Coca-Cola Company that attempts to extend the emotional connection to the viewers. It is intended to show that Coke is not just a faceless multinational corporation, but rather a company with modest roots and a rich history. Upon entering a statue of a soda jerk stands frozen in time, holding a Coca-Cola out for all that pass him. The rooms are decorated with artifacts from Coca-Cola’s founding. Original documents, writings, and historical pieces tell the story of the company’s founding in Atlanta. They ground the rest of the “Milestones of Refreshment” as a personal tale of the American Dream. It is important that they introduced this concept because much of the rest of the exhibit is a story of advertising, a realm hardly conceived of as genuine. The fact that this is advertising is not hidden from the attendees—plaques like “A Brand Becomes a Business” and “Changing the Face of Advertising” highlight Coca-Cola’s rich history in the area. By publicly recognizing this fact, Coca-Cola attempts to absolve itself from the negative connotations people associate with commercials. It is intended to be a room of memorabilia, not advertisements. This exhibit uses rhetorical strategies to proclaim Coca-Cola advertising is not an intrusive force but rather lifestyle branding that should be accepted because of the personal connection people have with the product and the company.

The face of advertising is also mediated in the “Pop Culture Gallery” in which the strong Coca-Cola brand is turned into art and lifestyle. Famous Coca-Cola images, like the Andy Warhol paintings, are meant to lend credence to role of Coke in culture. A television set plays the story of the failure of “New Coke,” a reformulation the company made to its cola in the 1980s that was widely criticized and despised. This video draws on the memory of that emotion, as if the company took a person’s favorite possessions away. And for those visitors that do not remember or never knew about New Coke, the video features more testimonials from upset Coca-Cola fanatics and snippets from television news stories that situate it historically. Similar to an intimate testimonial, the video acts like a confession booth. Coca-Cola admits its mistake and the viewer is supposed to absolve it of its sins because they appreciate the honesty. While it may seem like an trivial part of the exhibit, its works as an empowering device for the engaged participant, changing the subjective power relationship of the large corporation and the humble consumer.

Videos of people sharing their love of Coke continue in the “4-D” film “In Search of the Secret Formula”. While waiting in the queue outside the 4-D theater, visitors are shown a video that explains the science behind taste while mixing in stories of when people like to enjoy a Coca-Cola Classic. By blending empirical data with subjective emotions, the World of Coca-Cola seeks to demystify the process by applying general science. Once inside the theater, the viewers watch a 3-D movie that incorporates tactile special effects on a journey through the globe to find the last part of the formula that makes Coca-Cola so special. The use of these hyper-sensory special effects heightens the perception of this virtual experience (Klien). The film is an entrancing world in which the viewer is “so completely caught up in the textual world that she loses sight of anything external to it” (Ryan 98). Coke can convey its narrative of the product’s cultural and personal significance through the spectacle of this fantastic environment, which the film calls the final ingredient in its secret formula.

Taste, the sensation that is the basis of the experience of the product yet obscured throughout the venue, is finally realized in the final part of the journey. Or it is at least intended to be the final area, as the exit to the gift shop is through the room, though there’s nothing to prevent people from tasting the Coca-Cola flavors of the world at any time in their visit. Contrary to the basic sensory interpretation, taste is not a personal experience but something to be shared. The layout of the room is designed to foster a communication between the many tasters. The soda fountains are arranged in circular formations based around the different continents and the curious visitors crowd around these hubs to fill their little cups. Strangers laugh with each other as they taste the infamous “Beverly,” an Italian soda that takes like concentrated tonic water, and give tips on the best flavors to try. The tasting room is the realization of the story presented by Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola is “more” than a soda—it is a brand that should engage the consumer emotionally to ensure loyalty.