Hollywood Rocks Madison Avenue

By Janice Castro

AT ANY OTHER TIME, THE announcement by Coca-Cola president Donald Keough of a worldwide campaign of 26 new commercials would have been cause for celebration in the advertising industry. Describing just such an occasion last week, a pumped-up Peter Sealey, Coke's director of global marketing, said, "It was a seminal moment, like the first sustainable nuclear reaction." Maybe so, but this time it was Madison Avenue that was feeling the heat. After relying on New York's respected McCann-Erickson advertising agency (est. 1992 billings: $6 billion) for nearly 40 years, Coca-Cola had taken the unprecedented step of seeking outside help for its new campaign, tapping Creative Artists Agency, the movie industry's top talent shop. To the ad industry's dismay, nearly all the new commercials introduced last week were produced by CAA. Even worse, they are terrific.

Wry, hip and charming, the ads, which will air beginning this week on shows ranging from The Simpsons and Saturday Night Live to CNN newscasts, deliver the pitch for Coke in a series of vignettes:

-- Red Coke signs flash against a rhythmic backdrop of bright colors, all in time to a lilting rock song: "Wherever there's a beat, there's always a drum; wherever there is fun, there is Coca-Cola."

-- A polar bear rumbles across the ice pack, joining his family to view the northern lights. Settling down with a grunt, he takes a long swig of Coke. Ahhh.

-- Evil scientists try to brainwash a cheerful young man who simply wants a Coke, chanting in unison, "All colas are the same, all colas are the same."

The apparent success of the ads from Hollywood is unsettling for the advertising industry. After all, this is a key account, on which Coke spends about $600 million a year. "Anytime a major client like Coca-Cola makes a public demonstration of lack of confidence, it's not good for your reputation," says James Dougherty, an advertising specialist at Dean Witter.

Why bring in CAA? During McCann's long and successful partnership with Coca- Cola, the agency has scored with such popular notions as "Things Go Better with Coke" and "It's the Real Thing." But over the past few years, while Michael Jackson moonwalked and Ray Charles sang "Uh-huh" for archrival Pepsi, Coca-Cola Classic's advertising often seemed somewhat flat. Something had to give.

In 1991 Coke surprised McCann by signing CAA for what it vaguely described as media and communications advice. "What is that?" asked a testy McCann executive. "Isn't that what agencies do? Create an image, a media concept?" Before long, the McCann team found out what Coke had in mind: CAA advisers were working alongside them in their New York City offices, suggesting ideas for Coke Classic. Coca-Cola had created an uneasy creative alliance in search of better ideas. They had also created a mild panic in the advertising business, where many executives viewed CAA's new role with alarm. Rumors flew that CAA might even try to capture the Diet Coke account handled by the prominent Lintas agency.

CAA is accustomed to complicated arrangements. Controlling hundreds of leading actors, directors and producers, the agency's chief, Michael Ovitz, has reinvented the meaning of the deal in Hollywood, often representing nearly every major player in top films and selling them as a package. But Ovitz has long yearned to have his firm branch out from being merely talent agents. He got close to Coke executives when he helped arrange Sony's friendly purchase of Columbia Pictures from Coca-Cola in 1989.

In his latest deal, he was able to offer Coke the services of top filmmakers as collaborators on its ads. Film directors Rob Reiner (When Harry Met Sally, A Few Good Men) and Richard Donner (Superman, Lethal Weapon), for example, were among those producing the new Coke commercials. "What we do every day," explains Ovitz, "is listen to ideas, encourage them, nurture them. This is no different. Instead of creating a story that is TV or feature-film length, we shifted to stories that are 30 seconds or 60 seconds long." As for what Coca- Cola paid CAA for its work, no one is saying. Jokes Ovitz: "I only asked for one thing in exchange: the Formula."

A spokesman for McCann, which came up with the new slogan, "Always Coca- Cola," maintains that the agency is pleased with the new commercials. McCann will remain Coke's agency of record, creating ads and providing a variety of marketing and administrative services in many of the 195 countries where Coca-Cola sold a record 10 billion cases of its regular and diet sodas last year. If the help from Hollywood was cause for anxiety, what really matters for both Coke and McCann is their strong new armory of advertising for the company's flagship brand.

With reporting by Ketanji O. Brown/New York !