The "Diet Coke Break" advertising campaign is a series of six television advertisements that ran from 1994 to 2013, used to promote the soft drink Diet Coke. Each advert centers around a group of women ogling an attractive man while he works, soundtracked to a version of "I Just Want to Make Love to You". The Diet Coke Break campaign is remembered as being one of the earliest examples of gender roles being swapped in TV advertising, with women objectifying attractive men, rather than the other way around - it has been described as "much loved" and "truly iconic". The campaign has also generated criticism over whether its adverts are sexist towards men.
The Origins of the Diet Coke Break
The mid-eighties were a fun time for cola marketing. Pepsi was bringing celebrities to the party and calling themselves the choice of a new generation. Meanwhile, Coke was trying to recover from the New Coke debacle and was spending heavily on marketing with numerous properties and personalities. After the New Coke backlash, Coke seemed to double down on using familiar pop culture faces to stay relevant. This resulted in a series of Diet Coke ads that brought together an interesting, and sometimes strange, mix of celebrities. There were ads with DEVO and Andy Warhol, Walter Payton and Ray Parker Jr., Chuck Berry and Martin Mull, and more.
Then came the Diet Coke Break campaign. The original Diet Coke Break advert was produced by Lowe & Partners/SMS on a $70 million account, and was one of seven television commercials to carry Diet Coke's new "This is refreshment" theme. The advert was directed by Jeremiah Chechik and written by Lee Garfinkel, and premiered on US television in 1994. Diet Coke Break depicts a group of women working in an office in a skyscraper.
The First "Hunk": Lucky Vanous
The first commercial premiered on US television in 1994, and starred American actor Lucky Vanous as a handsome construction worker who removes his shirt while taking his "Diet Coke break". The advert was a huge success, catching The Coca-Cola Company by surprise. Speaking in 2001 about his part in the Diet Coke Break campaign, Vanous remarked: "I felt very uncomfortable with that role as a sex object.
Despite not initially planning for a sequel, Coca-Cola launched a second Diet Coke Break advert in June the following year. The commercial, Magazine, saw Vanous return to his role as the Diet Coke hunk - he portrayed a model brought to life from the pages of a fashion magazine by a woman drinking a Diet Coke.
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Expanding the Concept: Window Cleaners and Delivery Men
The campaign returned two years later in 1997 with two new commercials. The first of these was titled 11.30 Appointment, and starred the actor Robert Merrill. The sequence features a group of women arriving at the reception area of an office building, each one for their "11:30 appointment", then sitting in a room with a large window. The fourth Diet Coke Break advert, Dispenser, premiered in the US during the 69th Academy Awards on March 24, 1997, the same year as 11.30 Appointment. As with the previous two commercials, it is set in an office with a female workforce. Dispenser was created by the Milan office of the Leo Burnett Company, and had already been introduced into the French and Spanish markets by the time it was released in the US.
A Decade-Long Hiatus and a Shift in Focus
After Dispenser, Diet Coke Break commercials went into hiatus for ten years. Following the UK release of Coke Zero in 2006-which was deliberately being marketed at men-the campaign returned with a new advert, Lift, to repromote Diet Coke towards the brand's female consumers. An international search to find a new "hunk" began in 2006. Lift follows three women working in an office. Each carrying a can of Diet Coke, they enter an elevator and intentionally press the emergency call button. A technician (Xavier) sees the women on a CCTV monitor, and leaves his post to free them from the elevator.
The Final Chapter: The Gardener
To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Diet Coke's launch in Europe, the Diet Coke Break campaign returned in 2013 with a sixth and, as of 2020, final advert, titled Gardener. In the commercial, a group of women are sitting in a park drinking Diet Coke and watching an attractive gardener (Andrew Cooper) as he mows the grass. One woman rolls a can of Diet Coke to him, which hits his lawnmower. She gestures to him to drink from the can, which fizzes the soda all over him when he opens it. The women laugh at the gardener, at which he removes his T-shirt, revealing his muscular torso underneath. As the women gape at him in disbelief, the gardener walks away with a smile on his face.
The new campaign features Manchester model Andrew Cooper, a one-time wannabe singer who released a track in the late 1990s and was briefly represented by Take That's former manager Nigel Martin-Smith. The ad, set to Etta James's version of the track I Just Want to Make Love to You, will be released on TV in the UK in March. Cooper appears in the TV ad as a gardener joining the ranks of roles the "hunk" has been assigned over the years, including a lift technician, window cleaner and delivery man.
Cultural Impact and Legacy
By 2015 it was perceived that the Diet Coke Break campaign did not "represent the values of modern confident women", and the adverts were retired. In their place, a new campaign was launched encouraging women to "regret nothing".
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To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the first Diet Coke Break advert, a £3.5 million multimedia marketing campaign was launched in 2014. The campaign spanned television, radio, print and social media, and included Gardener returning to British television.
Controversy and Criticism
The adverts also generated criticism over whether they were sexist against men. When Dispenser was broadcast in Canada, the national government felt that it was demeaning to men and pulled it off the air.
Parodies and References
Since it premiered in 1994, the Diet Coke Break campaign has been parodied in adverts for other companies. In 1999, 11.30 Appointment was parodied in an advert for the British beer John Smith's. As in 11.30 Appointment, the advert shows a topless version of John Smith's mascot (the cardboard cut-out "No Nonsense Man") being lifted in a suspended platform past the window of an office boardroom in a skyscraper. In 2019, the car manufacturer Vauxhall Motors also parodied Diet Coke Break to promote their new Astra Light model. The advert begins similarly to Diet Coke Break, with women working in an office excitedly telling each other that it is "Break time" and then gathering at a window. However, rather than gazing at a handsome man, the women are instead watching an Astra Light being driven around a parking lot. The campaign was also referenced in "The Red Door", the fourth episode of the British sitcom The IT Crowd. In the episode, the character Jen distracts a pair of female workers in an office by telling them there is a builder outside taking off his shirt, "like in ads".
Diet Coke Advertising: A Timeline
1982 - Launches in the US with stars including Telly Savalas1983 - Launches in Europe1986 - Whitney Houston fronts ad campaign1990 - Elton John and Paula Abdul star in TV campaign1991 - Diet Coke claim world's first CGI ad with Paula Abdul performing with stars including Gene Kelly and Groucho Marx1994 - Original Diet Coke break hunk ad launches: Lucky Vanous as a construction worker1997 - Second hunk ad: Robert Merrill as a window cleaner1997 - Third hunk ad: Paul Johansson as a delivery man, first to keep his shirt on2007 - Diet Coke break hunk takes a, er …
The Early Days of Diet Coke
It’s kind of funny to think that diet soda is still a relatively modern creation. Diet Coke, for instance, is basically a millennial-born in 1983! Sure, diet sodas existed as early as the 1940s and 1950s (among the first, the ritzy sounding Canada Dry Glamor). But the industry took a beating in the 1960s and 1970s as all sorts of controversy brewed over diet soda ingredients. While some early diet soda brands persisted-Diet Rite, Tab and the weirdly named Dietetic Dr. Pepper (later changed to Diet Dr.
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Until that point, extending the Coca‑Cola Trademark to another brand had been a no-no. Diet Coke was pegged a top priority. “It was an entrepreneurial, cloak-and-dagger operation in the purest sense,” said Jerry Bell, who worked with Carew in the Planning Department. “I remember getting this weird phone call from Jack… Goizueta green-lighted the Diet Coke project, which shifted quickly from planning to implementation. “This was a difficult decision because there were two big risks,” Carew said. “TaB was the moneymaker at the time, so if Diet Coke turned out to be a disappointment, the company would seriously complicate its future. Despite concern that Diet Coke would cannibalize TaB - which was the No. back then, but diets were growing three times faster than the rest of the category. “We said Diet Coke would be more accretive to Coca‑Cola brand value, because we would source volume from the competition versus the Coke franchise,” said Pat Garner, who joined the Diet Coke team with 10 years of bottler and field marketing experience.
The team debated over whether to adopt the “diet” prefix - the label Nielsen had given to the relatively new category because the term was used in the names of two of its top three brands. “Sugar Free” was one alternative, but many saw it as a slur on Coca‑Cola’s main ingredient. Diet Coke was the most straightforward articulation of the promise of the brand. “It just seemed like the logical answer,” said John Farrell, who joined the team from Corporate Finance. For many years, the brand name was written and marketed as diet Coke - with a lowercase “d” - to reinforce the positioning of the product. Their reasoning: Diet with an uppercase “D” was a noun, and the use of a noun changed the name of the trademark.
As the positioning began to come together, Farrell built a financial model to demonstrate the link between the brand’s marketing activities and bottler revenue. “John’s model made us highly credible,” Carew said. As Farrell explains it, “The economics of Diet Coke were so unbelievably simple because it didn’t have any sugar. When you remove the second-highest cost item after aluminum cans, you can make the numbers trend pretty well. The financial model gave Coca‑Cola USA the confidence to invest in marketing the brand. “We positioned it as a great-tasting soft drink that happens to have one calorie, rather than as a diet drink that tastes great,” Norcia explains.
Diet Coke existed only on paper for months, but mock-ups of the initial packaging graphics gave the brand a visual identity. The team built a makeshift grocery aisle inside an abandoned syrup plant next to company headquarters to see how the designs would look on the shelf alongside other brands. “At that point, it all became very real,” Bell said. The core Diet Coke demographic was baby boomers who were getting 20 years older and 20 pounds heavier. “We had an in-depth knowledge of our target consumer and the issue of weight in America,” Carew said. SSC&B’s extensive consumer research revealed several key insights that steered the brand’s marketing strategy. “We asked people which celebrities they thought would drink Diet Coke, and they responded with names of very masculine movie stars,” Norcia said.
Behind the scenes, researchers had been working for more than two years to formulate a new low-calorie soft drink worthy of sharing the Coca‑Cola name. Coke’s regulatory team predicted that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) would approve aspartame by 1985. “We knew aspartame was going to happen; it was just a matter of when,” Carew says. “Our counter-argument to those who wanted to wait for was differentiate or die. We had to get out in front, enter the market with a saccharin base and take advantage of the awareness and acceptance of the event. Six lead markets - New York, Jacksonville (Fla.), San Diego, Minneapolis, Denver and Baltimore - were selected to debut the brand. “By rolling out slowly, we hoped to spark a bit of friendly competition among markets,” Carew explains. “For example, we wanted Los Angeles to keep an eye on what New York was doing. Coca‑Cola held a high-profile press conference in New York City on July 8, 1982. A week later - before the first case had been delivered - 75 percent of the area population was aware of Diet Coke’s imminent introduction.
Diet Coke’s first TV commercial had to define the character of the brand and make a bold statement. Carew arrived at the office one morning, having just heard the news that Princess Diana had given birth to Prince William. “Steve bounced it off Mal, who came to Atlanta a few days later to show us how the ‘heir to the throne’ metaphor could translate to a TV commercial,” Carew said. The spot was filmed on July 29, 1982 at Radio City Music Hall in New York after a gala event for bottlers and key customers. “We wanted to make it clear that Diet Coke was a new product no one had ever seen before,” Norcia said. Months later, Nielsen reported the first market share for Diet Coke in Denver. Carew jotted down the data and went to the company auditorium where Dyson was holding a meeting with bottlers. “I walked across the stage and handed him the piece of paper,” Carew recalls. The news lit a fuse. Who would beat Denver? “The success of the launch showed the greatness of the entire Coca‑Cola system,” Carew said. “Our bottlers truly understand what it takes to make an indulgent, impulse product launch a success. By the end of 1983, Diet Coke was the No. and the top soft drink brand among women. At the end of 1984, Diet Coke displaced 7UP as the No. behind Coca‑Cola and Pepsi - a position it held until the end of 2010 when it overtook Pepsi. “Being the number-one diet drink was an automatic slam dunk,” said Garner. “That was just a stepping stone for us. The success of the brand demonstrated the importance of trusting people to do their jobs and to take risks. “Give them all the latitude they can possibly take,” Carew said. “You also have to be credible. You have to know your stuff, study everything, and have an answer to any question that might come up. Teamwork and an entrepreneurial spirit are important, too, Garner said. “Yes, each of us can do great things as individuals. He concluded, “My entrepreneurial seeds were sown in the days of Diet Coke. Every time I speak to these guys, that entrepreneurial spirit comes back.
Celebrity Endorsements in Diet Soda Commercials
And holy NutraSweet, did the celebs come running to join the diet soda bandwagon. You couldn’t throw a pop top in the 1980s without hitting a celebrity doing a diet soda commercial.
Here’s a quick journey through some of the best celeb diet soda commercials from the decade.
- Sharon Stone’s great train ride for Diet Sprite: Bold claim: this is not only the best diet soda commercial ever, this might be in the running for one of the best 1980s commercials. There’s cola wars (Coca-Cola’s Diet Sprite vs. Diet Pepsi), a pre-Basic Instinct Sharon Stone, and a production budget that’s better than at least 50% of the action movies released during the decade. Sharon Stone runs to catch a train, hangs off the side of the train, balances on top of the train, ducks as the train goes into a tunnel, all in the name of Diet Sprite. And her hair at the end?
- Whitney Houston’s pipes bring down the house for Diet Coke: One calorie has never sounded so damn good. This is less a commercial, and more a 1980s dance bop that you could find on Open House Party or Friday Night Videos. Whitney Houston is peak Whitney Houston in this ad, and sends Diet Coke flying all the way to the rafters. It doesn’t even matter that this commercial is an entire minute of basically the same phrase (“Just for the taste of it, Diet Coke!!”).
- Michael J. Fox and the fire escape from hell blocking his Diet Pepsi: Perhaps Michael J. Fox isn’t the first 1980s celebrity people think of “Oh, a soda commercial that’s more or less the set-up of a hot threesome.” But sure enough, in this Diet Pepsi ad, Michael J. Fox’s new hot neighbors stop by to borrow a Diet Pepsi. He runs to the kitchen to get one but upon realizing he doesn’t have any, descends from his apartment’s fire escape and catapults into the rainy city streets to find a soda machine. Does Michael J.
- Lee Majors gets buff in a 1980s gym by drinking Diet Rite: The best part about this commercial by far is the opening 6 seconds, where Lee Majors is doing sit ups in a gym. A fitness model walks past him and Lee decides to flirt with her by going, “Hey, I lost eight pounds.” The model quickly responds: “Lose 8 more.” Lucky for Lee, Diet Rite is there to help him chisel his body. Also learned during this commercial?
- Lynda Carter zings Don Rickles over a Diet 7Up: Don Rickles thinks he has the upper hand with Lynda Carter. But come on, hockey puck, no one gets a joke in with Wonder Woman.
- Demi Moore almost free falls to her death for Diet Coke: If Sharon Stone gets the best diet soda commercial in history, then Demi Moore perhaps gets the second best. This 1988 spot looks like Tim Burton directed it, with a vamp-like Demi tripping over her cat, forcing her to lose control of her can of Diet Coke which rolls out the balcony, and onto the ledge of the giant gothic skyscraper she calls home. Does she fall to her death? Or does she somehow manage to defy gravity, land a crisp refreshing Diet Coke, and flirt with a man?
- Too Close For Comfort’s Deena Freeman gives her sassy take on Tab: Aww, RIP Tab. The beloved diet soda, one of the first ever, was nixed by Coca-Cola last year. The early 1980s were Tab’s heyday though, and there are some fun Tab commercials that are borderline bops today. When it comes to celebrities, though, Tab didn’t entirely light the decade on fire. This spot featuring Deena Freeman at least gives us Tab’s big catchphrase: Tab’s got sass.
- Lauren Hutton disrobes and belly flops for Pepsi Light: Pepsi Light? Yes, prior to aspartame, low-cal cola tasted a bit metallic because of saccharin. So to hide that taste in the early 1980s, Pepsi put some lemon in their diet soda and branded it Pepsi Light. And as this spot from Lauren Hutton shows you, it’s so refreshing it makes you want to disrobe into a tight swimsuit and indelicately plop your body into a pool. Sheesh, someone give Ms.
- Flip Wilson and Geraldine flirt and roller skate over some Diet 7Up: Before Tyler Perry did Madea or Martin Lawrence did Sheneneh Jenkins, comedian Flip Wilson donned some drag and created a persona known as Geraldine Jones, a quick-witted flirty and confident woman with some banger catch phrases. Ever heard the line “What you see is what you get,” or ”The devil made me do it,” or “When you’re hot, you’re hot. When you’re not, you’re not”? You can thank Geraldine Jones for those. And in this ad you get full sass Geraldine telling you why she drinks Diet 7Up, and why she won’t put up with any grief about it.
- Country music legend Lynn Anderson trots on up for Diet Shasta: Digging deep into the pop trash vault for this one, and it’s entirely because Shasta deserves a spot in a list about 1980s soft drinks. Lynn Anderson may have never promised anyone a rose garden, but she sure promises you a country jingle dedicated to the deliciousness of Diet Shasta. Got another one we’ve missed?
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