The archive · Content & Film · Marketing decision · 2021–2022
Coke cans printed with beats let SA youth make music — BeatCan wins Loeries Grand Prix
Coca-Cola South Africa prints beat, melody and lyric phrases on cans so anyone can beatbox a track — Radio & Audio Grand Prix at Loeries 2022, Silver at Cannes
Coca-Cola South Africa
What it had to solve
Coca-Cola South Africa wanted to live inside youth culture — Amapiano, Gqom, Afrobeat and hip-hop — rather than just interrupt it. The constraint was production: no big-budget studio content, just packs and mouths.
How it works
South African youth culture is music culture — Amapiano, Gqom, Afrobeat and hip-hop — and Coca-Cola wanted a seat in that conversation. FCB Joburg's brief was to make the brand part of how young people create, not just what they drink.
The idea made the can itself an instrument. Forty new cans and bottles carried phonetic music components — beats, melodies, effects and lyrics — so all anyone needed to make a track was a Coke and their mouth. Tutorials, artist collaborations, radio partnerships and OOH launched the platform under #RefreshWherevs.
The campaign trended on Twitter in its first week and doubled brand-love mentions. Its audio execution then swept the 2022 Loeries — the Molefi Thulo Grand Prix for Radio & Audio, seven awards in total — and added a Silver Cannes Lion, the only award Coca-Cola won at that festival that year.
Why it lands
- The pack became the medium: every can is a free musical instrument in the hands of its drinker.
- It spoke the youth's own language (music) instead of interrupting it with a brand message.
- Zero production barrier — mouths and cans beat studio content, so participation was the campaign.
- The mechanic was inherently shareable, so radio, social, OOH and mobile could all carry the same idea.
What it did
The platform trended on Twitter in its first week and doubled brand-love mentions. The audio work won the Molefi Thulo Grand Prix for Radio & Audio at Loeries 2022 (seven awards total) and a Silver Cannes Lion — Coca-Cola's only award at Cannes that year.
What you can take
Give the audience a tool, not a message: when the pack itself becomes the instrument, every drinker is a performer and the culture carries the brand.
Since then
FCB and partners extended the platform through 2023: a rich-media mobile ad by InMobi and Mediacom let users combine beats, melodies and effects into a shareable 'Coke Beat' — 6.3M+ impressions, 1.8M unique users, ~17,000 beats created, and an 18% lift in purchase intent (29% among women). BeatCan/Beatnation became a reference for packaging-as-participation and youth music marketing in Africa.
Sources
- Coca-Cola and FCB launch new campaign
- FCB Joburg wins Loerie Grand Prix Award
- FCB Joburg's Coca-Cola Campaign Wins Silver at Cannes Awards
spotted an error? The archive wants to know.
Your turn
You just read one. Describe the brief you are staring at, and see who has been given the same problem.
Free account · 3 free questions · no card