If Only The Colts Drank More Coke...

If there was still any question regarding the viability of videogames as a cultural textual medium, America's leading soft drink manufacturer has entered the debate, and is putting its money where its mouth is. Coca-Cola has released a new ad campaign based on the Grand Theft Auto series, which recently aired during the Superbowl. The ad features a GTA-like avatar (fresh from breaking every traffic law in the book) who, after guzzling a Coke, changes his plundering ways and spreads charity and good will with the help of the brown-and-bubbly. The peppy refrain in the background reminds the viewer, "Give a little love and it all comes back to you." (I'm sure I don't need to explain just how stark a contrast this is to the idiological refrain of the actual game.)

Similarly, Coca-Cola Company has been marketing its product in China with ads and packaging based on the game World of Warcraft. This campaign, featuring what can only be described as the Trifecta of Nerddom (hot girls, medieval weaponry, and videogaming), is both sensorally and emotionally stimulating, just like its American counterpart.

But does it put the bottles in the hands?

The answer to this question will depend on a lot of factors, but among the most important of them, of course, is the factor of recognizibility. Will people (specifically, people outside of the 18-24 year old male demographic) understand and relate to these images?

Without the market research at hand to answer these questions, I am forced to resort to conjecture. Hence, today's anecdote:

This year, rather than surround myself with the usual band of college-aged miscreants, I watched the Superbowl with my mother. Nearly 50, female, and the mother of two girls, my mom falls well beyond the demographic typically associated with videogaming. In fact, I can personally attest to her not having played a single videogame since the last time she played Tetris before we broke our NES in 1993.

So when the Coke GTA commercial came on, I wasn't expeting much of a response on her end.

Yet, as it turns out, videogaming is so pervasive in society today that even my mom (my mom) got the reference, the irony, and the humor of the commercial. She could even tell me exctly which videogame the commercial had parodied.

I'm not sure what to say about this episode other than this: videogaming, for better or for worse, is something that relates to a larger portion of American society (and perhaps those of others, as well) than we perhaps thing. If this kind of widespread, mainstream usage of videogames proves successful, perhaps it will draw more attention to the use of videogames and other digital media as a new wave of textuality, appealing not just to the nerd in mom's basement, but to mom, as well.