Cola Giants Square Off Coke, Pepsi Take Dramatically Different Approaches In Holiday Promotions

Coca-Cola Co. is sticking with classic images of Santa Claus while Pepsi-Cola Co. is taking a high-tech approach to holiday packaging this year.

The contrasting packaging styles give the top two soft drink makers another chance to liven up their perennial battle for an increasing share of the $50 billion soft drink market.

Coca-Cola Classic was the best-selling soft drink brand in the United States last year with 20.4 percent of the market compared with 17.8 percent for second-place Pepsi, trade publisher Beverage Digest says.

Each has been using unusual package designs and splashy holiday commercials for years.

Marketing experts say special holiday packaging helps products stand out on the store shelves and creates some seasonal excitement around a brand.

Simon Williams, head of the packaging agency The Sterling Group, said carefully crafted holiday designs can “heighten some brand personality.”

But he said there are risks, like unsold holiday packages languishing on shelves long after the celebration.

Fancy designs also could irritate consumers who are pinching pennies. “I can see some people asking “Why do I have to pay for all this extra packaging?,”’ Williams said.

Coca-Cola, based in Atlanta, is resurrecting four classic paintings that artist Haddon Sundbolm did for the company’s advertising between 1931 and 1966. The paintings each showed a rotund and rosy-cheeked Santa with a full white beard enjoying a bottle of cola.

Using a new heat application process, Coca-Cola is attaching reprints of the paintings to 75 million bottles of its flagship Coca-Cola Classic. Reproductions also appear on 668 million cans and on paper-board carriers.

Santa is shown relaxing in an easy chair, getting caught raiding the refrigerator, urging the dog to hush and holding a smiling little girl on his lap.

“We found consumers are really interested in traditional Christmases, idealized Christmases,” said Coca-Cola spokeswoman Mary Butin.

The packages were available in most markets Thanksgiving Day, and Coca-Cola plans to draw attention to them with a commercial showing brilliantly lit soft drink delivery trucks.

Pepsi, based in Somers, N.Y., is taking a different approach with silvery packaging that incorporates two-level holograms on paper board carriers for 24-packs.

Holograms are created by laminating film to paper board, which gives the impression of depth. The Pepsi logo appears and disappears among holiday images when the carriers are viewed from slightly different angles.

The cans inside the carriers also have modern stylized images of a reindeer, a snowman and a Santa.

Similar holograms appear on the 24-pack carriers for Pepsi’s sister brands Diet Pepsi and Caffeine Free Diet Pepsi and the company’s Mountain Dew and Diet Mountain Dew packages.

Pepsi said it is the biggest single holographic project ever undertaken, at 11 million to 12 million cases.

“Consumers look to Pepsi for innovation,” said Robert Meyer, a top packaging executive at PepsiCola. “We put a little high-tech spin to our packaging and that draws some attention and creates excitement.”

The packages, which began appearing in stores Monday, are expected to encourage retailers to give Pepsi products more display space.

Neither company would disclose how much they are spending on the holiday packaging and promotion.