Home fuse project
> GO TO BLOG
CLIENT:
Coca-Cola
PROJECT:
Coca-Cola Brand and Coca-Cola Refresh Recycling Bin
BUSINESS MODEL TYPE:
THE DESIGN SOLUTION
Mixed Messaging
fuseproject helped articulate the value of curating Coca-Cola’s brand-licensing portfolio. We identified specific markets that offered true relevance for the Coca-Cola brand and limited the spaces Coca-Cola could or should appear. Hence, products imbued with a sense of recreation and refreshment could continue to license the Coca-Cola brand, but products that bore no discernible connection to the core Coca-Cola brand could not. fuseproject developed design examples to help Coca-Cola codify its usage and we created a style guide that would enable them to manage its brand licensing in the future.
Refreshment in a Can Next, we saw a major opportunity for Coca-Cola to increase recycling in America. While most major metropolitan areas in the U.S. offer some form of curbside recycling, the country’s rural areas and ex-urbs generally do not. The major gathering places in these rural districts are mostly event and sports arenas and shopping areas, which are dominated by Wal-Mart and Target. By giving visitors easy access to recycling, it could change the culture in those locations. Thus was born the Coca-Cola Refresh Recycling Bin.
Made entirely from post-consumer recycled PET soda and water bottles, the bin serves two simultaneous functions: first and foremost it encourages people to recycle, but it also showcases the exceptional design potential of recycled plastic. Furthermore, the Refresh Recycling Bin has a friendly posture that reaches out to the user. This unique profile combined with the bold use of color and modern graphic treatment aims to draw the attention of those passing by and encourage frequent, habitual use. The production of the Refresh Recycling Bin is amazingly simple and energy
efficient: it can be shipped at and assembled on site, drastically reducing the carbon footprint of each container. From beginning to end, the Refresh Recycling Bin achieves a high level of environmental design and implementation, which will encourage the consumer to do the same.
RPET Strategy: Regift, Reuse, and Recycle To define, analyze, formulate, and execute the RPET strategy, the team first studied the current flow of the PET stream within Coca-Cola as well as the shift in the future of closing the material loop within the organization. Given the recent acquisitions of recycling programs throughout the country and a growing effort to produce new products in the distribution chain from the raw material, we set out to identify the environmental leadership opportunity for Coca-Cola through a strategic RPET effort.
This was followed by a study of the cultural stigma with recycling, both in curbside and inter-institutional, to dig down to the consumer perception and value of recycling. These findings were cross-referenced with other seismic shifts in consumer thinking to develop a consumer connection strategy and brand positioning for Coca-Cola recycled PET products.
The use of RPET in design objects, like the Refresh bin, is unique because it not only encourages people to recycle, it also showcases the exceptional design potential of recycled plastic. Additionally, we designed other objects, clothing, bags, etc that could be used from RPET and then branded as a recycled Coca-Cola product. The design of these objects is part of Coca-Cola’s broader effort to become the global leader in PET recycling.