Rate This Board allows a billboard designer to rate a random piece of billboard artwork using a scale of 1 (not good) to 5 (great). Then the designer talks about what they may have done differently for outdoor advertising. This week’s rating is provided by Melody Roberts, a billboard designer and founder of Out of Home Creative, an outdoor advertising agency specializing in creating unique out of home designs for businesses, agencies, media buyers and out of home companies.  

Coca-Cola

Rating 4 (very good)

• Everyone loves the iconic Coca-Cola billboard of Santa holding the glass Coke bottle.

• It is ironic that Billboard Insider requested I rate this creative because I just happened to see it on a digital interstate location in Atlanta, GA.  Up close, I think it looks good but on the interstate the visual is different. I can make out a Red circle and Santa but not a truck. I assumed it was Coca-Cola due to the Red color and use of Santa but it looked like a Red, vibrating blur on a Black background. Even though their logo and tag lines are well known, they’re very small here so you can hardly make them out when driving on the interstate.

• I would have requested the client consider deleting the Red circle behind their logo as well as using Santa solo as they have done in the past (see below).   This concept takes away from Santa and the coke bottle by enclosing them in the truck.

• I can appreciate any advertiser who continues to reinvent their advertising to stay current but in this case, “If it’s not broke, don’t fix it”. This is true of Coca-Cola’s past billboards I’ve shown below. They’re not only memorable, they’re timeless and a nod to how great out of home creative will never get old. They could be used again and just have the message changed.

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