Coca‑Cola Blog: Heritage

As an Archivist for Coca‑Cola, I get to share stories about a number of important ads for the Company - but Coca‑Cola’s famous Hilltop commercial has always been one of my favourites.

The advert was released 40 years ago in the summer of 1971 and became an instant success in the US. Now, it’s remembered as one of Coca‑Cola’s best-loved commercials and was recently ranked by ITV as one of the top 10 ads of all time.

Watch the advert

A few years ago, I interviewed Bill Backer, who, as Coca Cola Account Director at advertising agency McCann-Erickson, played a key role in creating the Hilltop ad. According to him, Coca‑Cola Europe originally rejected the advert for being too ‘American’, which is ironic because both the song and the commercial have strong ties to the UK.

Behind the jingle...

Our story begins, as all good English tales should, with heavy fog in London. In January 1971 Bill was flying from New York’s JFK airport to London, but heavy fog caused the flight to be diverted to Shannon Airport in Ireland.

As Bill recounted in his interview with me, there were not enough hotel rooms available for all the travellers - so people had to share accommodation or sleep at the airport as they awaited clearance to fly. Many passengers were upset and frustrated at the situation, which led to a few raised voices. Bill noted that the next morning he saw some of the most vocal passengers from the night before laughing and sharing stories with their new friends over bottles of Coca‑Cola. He imagined the bottle of Coke as a small moment of pleasure that allowed people to share happiness. Motivated by the scene, he picked up a napkin and wrote the line "I’d like to buy the world a Coke and keep it company."

Bill eventually made it to London where he met songwriters Billy Davis and Roger Cook in Suite 610 of the Savoy Hotel. He shared the line he had written on the napkin with them, and the team spent most of the night working on the song. By 1am it was finished and they presented it the following afternoon to David Mackay, the musical arranger for folk group The New Seekers.

The group were asked to record ‘Buy the World a Coke’ as part of a series of commercials for The Coca‑Cola Company. The recording sessions were held at Trident Studios in Soho, London (where The Beatles, Elton John and Queen have also recorded).

It took several tries for the band to get the feeling just right - Billy Davis and Bill Backer felt early on that the group was trying to be the voice of Coca‑Cola instead of a voice for the times. We have several of the outtakes in our Archives and you can hear the difference as the group begins to sing the track less like a jingle and more like an anthem.

The song was released to American radio stations on 12th February, receiving some positive feedback. However, listeners did not have a positive reaction and it seemed the song was destined to fail.

The ‘Hilltop’ advert is born

At this point, Bill Backer wanted to give the song a second chance and asked around the agency for a way to illustrate it on television. Harvey Gabor, the Art Director for McCann Erickson, proposed that the song represented a ‘united world chorus’ and that it should be filmed with a large group of young people on the cliffs of Dover. The Coca‑Cola Company approved the concept (and one of the biggest advertising budgets of the time) - so the team headed back to England in March, just a few months after the initial fog that inspired the song.

Casting went ahead and the scenes were due to be filmed in Dover on 8th April. Then it started to rain, and rain, and…. After three days of cancelled shoots, McCann decided to abandon the white cliffs of Dover for a hilltop in Italy. But the setbacks didn’t end there. The advert’s female lead singer eloped during the production in Italy and suddenly had to be replaced. The advertising and casting agencies were frantically looking for a new lead, when they spotted British nanny Linda Neery pushing a stroller in Piazza Navona. As Harvey told me in an interview: "We knew she was perfect for the part, but we were worried two Americans walking up to a young girl would not look right. So we sent our female casting director to see if she would agree to appear in the ad." It took some work, but the perfect lead had been cast.

My British tale would end here, except for one more story. I was once talking with a longtime Communications Director of Coca‑Cola Great Britain, who told me he knew that Coca‑Cola Europe had turned down the chance to be the first to air the ad because it was too 'American'. He was walking down the street before Christmas in 1971 and heard the song being played on the radio as a call for peace. He went straight to the office and told the marketers they needed to get the ad on immediately.

The next time I am in London, I plan a pilgrimage to the Savoy Hotel and Trident Studios. So, if you see an American tourist looking wistfully at the 6th floor of the hotel or hanging outside the studio - offer him a Coke!