Ito ang Beat: The Coke commercial that went viral before that term even applied to popular trends
Issue #15
[Author’s Note]
Hello fellow Filipiniana fans,
I have received a lot of requests/suggestions to feature old Pinoy TV commercials. I appreciate those because I like it when people engage with our posts and because I myself like iconic TV ads. I think they simply have their own appeal. Before skippable ads, programmatic advertising, advanced ad analytics, TV commercials had to catch your attention and be memorable. Brands wanted you to buy their products at the end of the day, but making TVCs was both an art and a science.
Halina!
-Roi
[Pop Culture] Throwback to a Coke commercial that went viral before that term even applied to popular trends
In the early 2000s, Coke Philippines released a commercial that quickly gained popularity. It featured two young women playing a game of synchronized hand movements while reciting an upbeat chant. As the chant progresses, the pace gets increasingly faster. The first to finish it without making a mistake “wins” the bottle of Coke!
It was an instant hit. Everyone knew about it. Kids and teens loved it, playing their own versions. It went viral, before that term even applied to trends in social media. If you want to be cheeky about it, you might even say “Ito Ang Beat” walked so Anna Kendrick’s “Cups” could run!
More than 20 years since its release, millennials and above still remember it. It’s a good reminder of a time when TV commercials had to entertain. Back when commercials weren’t skippable but advertisers still had to be creative lest audiences switch the channel.
“Gets mo na?”
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I’ll have to hunt for the Coke commercial filmed in Baguio. My dad was driving a red taxi in that bit.
So all this time, I thought one of the stars in this viral commercial was Nikki Gil. haha She was from a different commercial pala.