Tag: 125th anniversary

Coca-Cola: The Future Room Exhibition

A museum-scale brand moment for a milestone anniversary

In brand experience work, the strongest anniversary executions do not look like commemorations. They look like a reason to step inside the brand world. Coca-Cola’s “Future Room” is a clean example of that approach.

For Coca-Cola’s 125th Anniversary, Istanbul’s creative agency Antilop created a “Future Room” concept, made specifically for the Turkish modern-art museum Santralistanbul. They transformed a section of the gallery into an impressive 90 square meter, 270-degree projection mapping installation.

How the Future Room worked as an immersive installation

The mechanism was spatial immersion. Instead of placing content on a single screen, the installation wrapped the audience in a 270-degree projection environment.

That choice changed the viewing behavior. People did not just watch a piece of content. They entered it, and the room itself became the interface.

Why it landed in a modern-art setting

In a museum context, attention is earned through presence, scale, and craft. Projection mapping fits because it turns a physical space into a living canvas.

By committing 90 square meters of gallery to one experience, the work signaled seriousness. It also made the activation feel like an exhibit, not an ad, which is exactly the psychological shift a heritage brand wants during an anniversary moment.

The business intent behind the exhibition format

The intent was to elevate the partnership between brand and venue, and to position Coca-Cola as culturally fluent rather than purely commercial.

An anniversary is a credibility play. The exhibition format helped translate “125 years” into something contemporary, sensory, and shareable, without relying on nostalgia alone.

What to steal for your next immersive brand experience

  • Choose a format that matches the venue. In cultural spaces, experience and craft beat messaging density.
  • Use scale as a signal. Large physical commitment communicates importance before anyone reads a word.
  • Turn the room into the medium. Immersion works when the environment does the storytelling, not just the screen.
  • Make milestones feel current. Anniversary work lands when it shows relevance, not only history.

A few fast answers before you act

What was Coca-Cola’s “Future Room”?

An immersive exhibition-style installation that used large-scale projection mapping to place visitors inside a branded future-facing environment.

What was the mechanism?

Use a wraparound projection space so the room becomes the interface, changing viewing from “watching” to “being surrounded”.

Why is this effective for anniversaries?

It shifts from nostalgia to experience. It gives people a reason to attend now, not just to remember then.

What is the takeaway for brand experiences?

When the space is the medium, design for presence and movement. Immersion creates attention without relying on exposition.

Coca-Cola: Rush Hour Cinema

Bogotá gridlock, turned into a cinema you are already sitting in

On an average, commuters in Bogota spend daily 4 hours stuck in traffic. The infernal rush hour traffic jams are the result of unfinished constructions on main avenues, as well as on the rapid transit system, TransMilenio, which has seen work on its expansion come to a halt, due to irregularities in the handling of funds, and corrupt contractors.

So Coca-Cola with ad agency Ogilvy Colombia turned these traffic jams into a drive in cinema. The soda-pop giant launched this ingenious initiative on the eve of their 125th anniversary.

The mechanism: a drive-in cinema without the driving

The idea is as direct as it gets. If people are trapped in cars for hours, give them something worth watching, right there on the route they cannot escape.

A drive-in cinema activation is a public screening designed for people inside vehicles, typically using a large screen for the picture and a radio frequency so the car stereo carries the audio.

In big-city commuting cultures, attention is already captive. The smartest brand experiences do not try to fight the context. They use it.

Why it works: it flips frustration into a shared moment

Traffic jams create the same emotional pattern every day. boredom, irritation, and the feeling that time is being stolen. Rush Hour Cinema interrupts that loop with something communal. Drivers are not just waiting. They are watching the same thing together.

The experience also changes what people do with their phones. Instead of complaining or doom-scrolling, they have a simple story to capture and retell.

The business intent behind the “nice surprise”

This is not a product pitch. It is brand behavior on display. Coca-Cola shows up as the brand that makes an unavoidable moment feel lighter, and it does it at scale, in the exact place where annoyance peaks.

It is also efficient media. The audience is guaranteed. The dwell time is long. And the memory is anchored to a very specific location and feeling, which makes recall easier later.

Rush Hour Cinema is an ambient Coca-Cola activation in Bogotá that uses rush hour gridlock as the venue, transforming waiting time into a public drive-in style screening.

What to steal if you want to turn a pain point into attention

  • Pick a context where time is already lost. Commuting, queues, delays, waiting rooms. People will thank you for filling it.
  • Make participation effortless. No app. No sign-up. Just look up and tune in.
  • Design for group reality. People experience it side-by-side, so the moment becomes social proof.
  • Keep the message implicit. When the gesture is the point, the brand earns goodwill without talking.

A few fast answers before you act

What is Coca-Cola’s Rush Hour Cinema?

It is an ambient activation in Bogotá that turns rush hour traffic into a drive-in style cinema experience, using a large screen for video and car radios for audio.

Why does a traffic jam make sense as a media channel?

Because attention and dwell time are already there. People cannot leave, and they are actively looking for relief from boredom and frustration.

What is the key design principle behind this idea?

Do not fight the context. Upgrade it. When you improve an unavoidable moment, the brand gets disproportionate gratitude and retell value.