The archive · Advertising · Marketing decision · 2024–2025
Coca-Cola crushes its iconic logo into 'Recycle Me' — Cannes 2024 Print Grand Prix
Coca-Cola distorts its untouchable logo into a crushed can, making the ad itself a recycling reminder — its first Cannes Grand Prix in a decade.
The Coca-Cola Company
What it had to solve
Coca-Cola's 'World Without Waste' strategy promises to recycle a bottle or can for every one sold by 2030, but recycling reminders rarely cut through; the logo is recognized by 94% of the world's population, so the brief was to use that identity to make recycling unmissable.
How it works
In 2024, Coca-Cola's 'World Without Waste' strategy set an audacious goal: recycle a bottle or can for every one the company sells by 2030. The problem was behavioral — recycling reminders rarely break through. Working with WPP's dedicated Open X team, Ogilvy New York set out to make recycling impossible to miss using the brand's most powerful asset: a logo recognized by 94% of the world's population.
The idea was to do the one thing brand guidelines forbid — damage the logo. The team crushed real cans with industrial presses and air compressors, photographed the deformed marks, and used each distinct crushed version across print, billboards and DOOH in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and the US. The only copy was the 'Recycle Me' call-to-action already printed on every can, so each ad was a self-contained reminder.
The simplicity paid off. 'Recycle Me' won the Print & Publishing Grand Prix at Cannes Lions 2024 — Coca-Cola's first Cannes Grand Prix in a decade — plus Gold and Bronze Lions in Outdoor, and later a Clio 2025 Grand Winner with three Golds. Jury president John Raúl Forero called it 'a reminder of the power of simplicity, audacity, purity and elegance in print advertising.'
Why it lands
- It inverted brand protection: instead of guarding the logo, Coca-Cola crushed it, turning 94% brand recognition into the proof of the recycling message.
- No new language was needed: the 'Recycle Me' line already printed on every can did the talking, keeping each ad to a single visual.
- It showed the action rather than lecturing about it: a distorted logo reads as a can mid-recycling, making the behavior visible.
- It scaled across markets and media: over 100 distinct crushed-logo executions ran in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and the US, each one unique.
What it did
Won the Cannes Lions 2024 Print & Publishing Grand Prix — Coca-Cola's first Cannes Grand Prix in a decade — plus Outdoor Gold and Bronze, and a Clio 2025 Grand Winner with three Golds; the crushed logo carried the entire message with no added copy.
What you can take
An untouchable brand asset becomes a message when you are willing to damage it visibly: the logo's 94% recognizability is what lets the distortion say 'recycle me' without a single extra word.
Since then
The campaign became Coca-Cola's most decorated recycling work in years: a Cannes 2024 Print & Publishing Grand Prix, Outdoor Gold and Bronze, and Clio 2025 honors. Adweek reported the campaign would roll out to further markets over time, and the agency credited the win to a simple idea that broke the brand's own rules — 'even crushed ones,' as Ogilvy New York's chief creative officer put it.
Sources
- Ogilvy Takes Home Grand Prix for Coca-Cola's 'Recycle Me' on Day One of Cannes Lions
- Horacio Genolet: 'Ganar el primer Grand Prix para Coca-Cola en 10 años es una alegría enorme'
- Coca-Cola Crushes Its Logo in New 'Recycle Me' Campaign From Open X
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