Coke Studio PH spins Zoetrope vinyl so its music can be seen as well as heard

Coke Studio Philippines had spent seven seasons doing one thing well: bringing musicians from different genres and generations together to record original songs. That format had made the platform famous, but by 2024 collaboration itself no longer felt novel — and Gen Z, the audience the brand needed next, was instead reaching for physical formats as a badge of music taste. Vinyl had outsold CDs in 2022 and 2023 for the first time since 1988, and young fans treated records as art to hang on dorm walls.

The creative answer was to make the vinyl itself tell the story of the collaboration. Ogilvy Singapore and WPP Open X used the Zoetrope technique, one of animation's earliest forms: artwork printed on the disc appears to move as the record spins. Each of the 300 limited-edition records features one song from Season 7, and the illustration is layered so every Filipino artist who collaborated on the track is represented — peppered with easter eggs, secret messages and shoutouts that reward attentive fans.

Illustrators Vanilla Chi, Rakhmat Jaka and Mathieu Labrecque designed the discs, which were pressed as 12-inch polycarbonate picture records and framed in recyclable acrylic. The records were unboxed by the artists themselves, sent to publishers, DJs and superfans, and stocked in local record stores, while clips from them ran on Spotify — turning the collectible into content as well as product.

The results, reported in the award case, show the object worked as a brand event: Coke Studio's brand perception among Gen Z rose 40%, mentions on social platforms rose 63% with 99% positive sentiment, coverage reached over 65 countries, and all Season 7 tracks doubled their Spotify plays. The work became an ADFEST 2025 winner entry and a LIA 2024 Finalist in the experiential category.