skills/campaign-canon/references/legendary-campaigns/cards/coca-cola-recycle-me-2022.md

---
id: coca-cola-recycle-me-2022
title: Recycle Me
brand: Coca-Cola
agency: Ogilvy
year: 2022
country: BR
region: latam
industry: beverage
pattern: [P17, P04]
category: ooh_print
idea_type: advertising
involvement: passive_view
channel: physical
duration: campaign
goal: [awareness, behaviour_change, purpose]
budget: medium
emotion: [hopeful, proud]
emotion_tier: 2
insight_domain: identity
media_epoch: social
awards: [cannes_gold, multiple]
quality_score: 8
scalability: universal
risk: safe
confidence: high
quality: full
source_url: https://www.ogilvy.com/work/recycle-me
---

# Recycle Me (Coca-Cola · 2022)

## Insight
Coca-Cola cans and bottles are among the most recognised objects on earth. Their iconic shapes are so familiar they're legible even when crushed, crumpled, or deformed. That deformation — the evidence of use — is also the beginning of recycling.

## Mechanic
Ogilvy created OOH executions showing crushed, crumpled, and deformed Coca-Cola cans and bottles — still recognisably Coca-Cola — with the simple message "Recycle Me." The deformation, normally a sign of waste, becomes a demonstration that the product's identity survives destruction and can be reborn.

## Why it worked
The design insight is the idea: the brand is so strong it survives its own destruction. This makes the call-to-action (recycle) feel positive rather than guilty — the can wants to be recycled, not thrown away. P17 (Design as Idea) because the crushed form IS the message; P04 (Brand as Activist) because the brand incurs no benefit by asking consumers to recycle instead of buy.

## Steal
Take the most unflattering visual state of your product — used, broken, empty — and ask what message it communicates if you treat it as the hero rather than hiding it.

## Related
- Pattern: [[../MOC-pattern.md#p17]]
- Sibling: [[absolut-absolut-campaign-1981.md|Absolut _____]]
- Sibling: [[apple-think-different-1997.md|Think Different]]

---

*Author: Serge Shima ([t.me/aimastersme](https://t.me/aimastersme) · [sergeshima.com](https://sergeshima.com) · [aimasters.me](https://aimasters.me)) · License: CC BY 4.0 — attribution required · Source: [smixs/creative-director-skill](https://github.com/smixs/creative-director-skill)*