Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola Recycle Me
Cannes Grand Prix
Coca-Cola
Overview
The crushed-can campaign for Coca-Cola that turned the act of recycling into the brand story itself, and became the most awarded work in the studio’s history.
The result
Figure reported by the brand and published by Contagious and Selfstorming, 2024. Press-reported rather than an audited number.
140m
impressions in the first week
Behind the work
The family
The work
The idea was printed, not filmed. Cans were crushed for real, photographed, and the logo that survived each crush became the poster.
The thirty-one prints delivered by LOBO, in the three languages the campaign ran in: Recycle me, Reciclame, Recicle-me.
A logo recognised by most of the planet is the one thing a brand never lets you touch. Coca-Cola let a press touch it, and kept whatever came out.
Every can was crushed physically, then photographed. Nothing was drawn, warped or generated, so every poster carries a logo that exists only once. The media plan made that legible: digital sites rotated a different crush each day, and a bus shelter would cycle four or five before you had finished waiting.
Method
Real cans, real presses
Delivered
31 prints, CMYK, 300 dpi
The set was lit red so the can disappeared into its own colour and only the white of the logo carried the frame. A robot arm did the pressing so the crush could be repeated, watched and stopped at the right moment.
The same shoot produced the film and the stills, which is why the boards and the spot look like the same object rather than two interpretations of it.
Impressions reported by Coca-Cola, via Contagious, July 2024. Logo recognition figure quoted by Ogilvy New York in the same interview.
140M
impressions in the first week
94%
of the planet recognise the logo that was crushed
31
one-of-a-kind prints delivered
3
countries at launch, then global
Format
24 x 36 in, 300 dpi, CMYK
Launched
Argentina, Brazil and Mexico, April 2024
Media
Billboards, transit, digital, press
Still photography
Nidin Sanches
In the wild
Buenos Aires and São Paulo, 2024. Every site carried a different crush, and the digital boards changed theirs daily.
Recognition
In the press
Credits
Agency
Ogilvy New York, WPP Open X
Agency producer
Dena Lenard
Directors
Gabriel Nóbrega
Mateus de Paula Santos
Managing partner, LOBO
Luis Ribeiro
Executive producer
Susan Constantine
Head of production
Marcelo Barbosa
Producer
Vitor David
Line producer
Anderson Boscari
1st and 2nd AD
Peterson Augusto Lomovtov
Paulo Vinícius Rodrigues da Silva
Director of photography
Lucas Andres Barreto
Felipe Lion Salles Souto
Still photography
Nidin Sanches
Post-production coordinator
Rosângela Gomes
Post-production producer
Vicente da Paz
Editor
Pedro Falcone
Manoel Marques
Assistant editor
Matheus Miglionico
Compositing supervisor
Leandro Pena
Compositing
José Eduardo Ambrosio
Rodrigo Vec
Rotoscope
Gassan Abdouni
Colour grading
Letícia Blanco
Motion graphics
Gabriel Green
Ingest, conform and delivery
Marco Tavares
Fábio Augusto
Isabella Balbo
Research
Raphael Amário
Music
Paulo Beto
The thinking
More work
