coke adverts – Plain Or Pan

Due to a combination of work commitments, family stuff, illness and far-out holidays in New York I’ve not been doing much blogging recently. Now that things have settled down a bit, I’m back.

Way back when Plain Or Pan first started (nearly 3 years ago) I posted a few Coca-Cola jingles. Visitors to the blog loved them – they were the most downloaded tracks for most of that year, so..when the inspiration just isn’t there to write anything new….this post is a bit of a repeat. I’ve taken the words from a March 07 bit I wrote and the tunes from my Coca Cola folder, although apart from the Nancy Sinatra jingle (which is kitsch, camp and quite ridiculous) I don’t think I’ve made them available on here before.

coca-cola_aretha_frankin

Hey! Get down! Dig it with the Vanilla Fudge and Coca Cola! My mum tells me that in the swinging 60s, most provincial teenagers never had access to, never mind actually try, the mind-bending drugs that were so obviously shaping music, fashion and the consciousness of society. Instead, the hip, with-it teenagers in my wee corner of the west of Scotland would pop a couple of aspirins into their Coca Cola and swing the night away in a tripped-out approximation of sixties bliss.

Coca Cola were well aware that things indeed go better with a Coca Cola, and their 60’s marketing team were so on the ball that they got the groups du jour to record Coke jingles for local radio and the likes. Most of these jingles are bloody magic. They are quite blatant pastiches of those artists’ current hit singles and fall into 3 distinct categories:

1. The soul/r’n’b artist – Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell, Carla Thomas, The Supremes, Otis Redding, Ray Charles etc etc

2. The fuzzed-out, beat-driven, blues-influenced garage bands – The Who, Vanilla Fudge, Troggs, Box Tops, Dave Dee Dozy Beaky Mick & Titch (so that stretches it a bit, but you get the point)

3. The pop stars/crooners – Bee Gees, Lulu, Roy Orbison, Petula Clark, Nancy Sinatra, etc.

cocacola