AD SHOCKER! Drink up ‘cos you love life (Coca Cola)

Sometimes the only reason to mention something is that annoys the crap out of you. Case in point: the Diet Coke tortoise advert.

Coca-Cola has been responsible for some real whiffy-ones as far as advertising on TV is concerned. From the ‘hands of love’ guff across the prairie fields in the seventies, to their ‘Just for Taste of it’ bile in the eighties, right up to this current slab of commercial hell-on-earth…

The current Coca-Cola advert features a tortoise, voiced by what can only be described as Mr. Affable Salt-of-the-Earth Regional Accent Man, walking about with a can of Diet Coke surgically attached to its back.  Quite how this got there is anybody’s guess, but an image of Lynx-sniffing teenagers with a tube super glue comes to mind.

This idiot tortoise has apparently convinced itself that carrying around a drink he’ll never be able to drink is a good thing. He talks to himself with surprisingly good grasp of the English language for a reptile. Rapping on about the daily joys of playing football with his mates or skateboarding under parked cars. He seems completely undaunted by no longer being able to hibernate in winter.

Then there’s the music. A cross between six-in-the-morning-kids-TV and the unfeasibly banal Scissors Sisters. A tune designed to become firmly ingrained in the mind with dull repetition worthy of any eighties video games console.

“I’ve got a can of Diet Coke on my back because I love life” chants our happy-yet-braindead tortoise. hecklerspray is hearing Coca-Cola’s message loud and clear. But we hate life at times like this. So why is Coke trying to sell to us in this manner? Mother of God…

Ah, yes. That must be it. This is subversive above-the-line viral advertising! Not content with adding everything from Lime and Lemon to their drinks, they now want everybody to stick their sugary drinks to backs of hapless animals. And they want us to do the same!

This is free advertising for Coke, you see. No need for an ebay sponsorship - just grab a tortoise from your local zoo. They’re stupid and won’t care. The more adventurous of you might head to the llama enclosure. Send us your pictures: hecklerspray@gmail.com.

We’re still waiting to see if Pepsi counteracts this marketing schnizzle with a ‘bottle strapped to a kitten’s nose’ advertising idea. Ears to the ground, folks.