Why do Top Brands Still Advertise?

Back in 1980, an amazing, hilarious movie was released. Titled, “The Gods Must Be Crazy,” the plot concerns a Bushman in the Kalahari Desert who finds a glass Coke bottle tossed from a passing airplane. He had never seen such a wonder before, and when he shares it with the tribe, they decide it must be a gift from the gods.

Up until that point, we always wondered who on Earth had never seen a Coke bottle.

Coke is everywhere. So is Pepsi. They are among the most recognizable brands on the planet. So why do they still spend billions in advertising? Not millions. Billions. According to Ad Age Datacenter, Coca-Cola spent $3.3 billion on advertising globally in 2013 – and its CEO has pledged to increase media spending and brand-building initiatives by up to $1 billion by 2016.

It sounds crazy, for two companies to spend so much money in advertising. What message could possibly be worth so much?

The answer to that billion-dollar question is: we are different. Coke and Pepsi. Oil and water. Red and blue. No matter what the neuroscience researchers at the Baylor College of Medicine say about the striking similarity of their chemical compositions, Coke and Pepsi are nothing alike.

Coke is about sharing, smiling, ice-skating polar bears at Christmastime and teaching the world to sing. You know, “Apple trees, and honey bees and snow-white turtledoves . . .” As if there wasn’t enough sugar inside the can.

Pepsi is none of those things. Pepsi is rock concerts and Britney Spears and Pink and Beyoncé. It’s Jeff Gordon and NASCAR. Pepsi isn’t warm and fuzzy; it’s loud and funny. It’s the next generation. And the next. And the next.

But is Coke really the key to a happier Christmas? If it is, why do I spend so much money at Toys “R” Us? Is Pepsi the true soda fountain of youth? Unfortunately, I am proof that it is not.

It’s more than a message of taste. Theirs is a message of choice. Which kind of life do you see yourself living? Coke and Pepsi spend billions each year to differentiate two colas that scientists and many consumers claim are no different. Because, in doing so, Coke and Pepsi aren’t buying brand recognition. They are buying a “brand experience.” They are giving the world a way to distinguish between two comparable entities, and doing it in a clever, entertaining – and increasingly costly – fashion.

So far, it seems to be working. I do get a genuine chuckle out of the Marshawn Lynch “Speechmode” Pepsi commercial. And, come Christmastime, I will be like the millions of people who stop what we’re doing and turn to our television screens when the adorable, multi-million-dollar, computer-generated Coke polar bear family takes to the ice.

Because that’s what big-money advertising is all about, Charlie Brown.