Coca-Cola unveiled its first work from Ogilvy Amsterdam a couple of weeks ago—a rousing, visually rich pan-European anthem that tried to raise some political issues and surely cost a ton to make. It did OK, with about 400,000 views on YouTube.
But if you really want to make a splash, you have to go simpler. You find an esoteric stat about babies, gather up some UGC footage of them smiling and laughing, shoot a bit of new footage, record a cute song to go with it, and boom—6 million views. See, making a Coke ad isn't as much of a slog as it's made out to be. (And let's agree to forget about kids, soda and childhood obesity for a minute or so.)
Volkwagen did something similar a couple of years ago, with both kids and adults. You'll probably recognize many of the kids in the Coke commercial—particularly the boy at the end, Micah, whose original 2011 YouTube video, "Baby Laughing Hysterically at Ripping Paper (Original)," has 78 million views of its own.
Check out the behind-the-scenes below.