A couple of years ago, Coca Cola posted a commercial starring two brothers, and featuring the song, “Hey Brother,” by Avicci. The plot of the commercial revolves around a rivalry between the two brothers, in which the older brother continues to agitate and bully the younger brother. Any sibling duo can understand such a rivalry, I being one of them. As an older brother, I can attest to the rivalry of this commercial as I have been guilty of it for twelve years.
The commercial is significant for its climax; the little brother is sitting on a bench in a park, enjoying a cold bottle of Coca-Cola. He is approached by three other boys who proceed to take his drink and keep it from his reach as he desperately tries to take it back. The older brother then appears, fresh from a workout. After a sudden, jolting, and aggressive thrust forward, the older brother unhands the coke from the three adolescents. The commercial ends with a very happy and satisfied little brother, for his drink has been returned to him.
I believe that this commercial has civic appeal in relation to Schudson’s ideas about shared enterprise. Though the commercial doesn’t emphasis a community coming together after a tragedy like Schudson exemplified, it symbolizes two people bonding over a specific thing: the bottle of Coca-Cola. By standing up for his younger brother, the older brother represents standing up for injustice in the whole community. Every brotherhood has that quintessential rivalry; what’s so important about this commercial is that it emphasizes that brotherhood isn’t just fighting; that there’s always something to bring people together, whether brothers or not. In this case, its the Coca-Cola. The commercial is trying to advocate to people that, no matter how much people hate each other, something as simple as a coke can create a sense of community and love.
