Coca-Cola sharpens identity with global system built for scale
Led by branding agency JKR, the work sees the soft drink giant double down on its heritage in a bid to strengthen its position across more than 200 markets
Coca-Cola has unveiled a new global visual identity that seeks to reinforce its position as the world’s most recognisable soft drink. Rolling out across Latin America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia, the refresh subtly refines the brand’s most iconic assets while creating a more consistent consumer experience across more than 200 markets.
Agency JKR, which led the development of the identity, have placed renewed emphasis on Coca-Cola’s signature red-and-white colour palette, Spencerian script, Dynamic Ribbon and Arden Square, with the updated system extending across packaging, retail environments, equipment and digital experiences.
Coca-Cola Zero Sugar has also been tweaked, featuring larger ‘Zero Sugar’ typography, a more prominent black Dynamic Ribbon on cans and black bottle caps on PET packaging.
How do you even begin to reinvent a brand that’s 140 years old? “The answer is you don’t,” says Tosh Hall, global chief creative officer at JKR. “Coca-Cola is the pinnacle of cultural relevance.” Hall describes the project as an exercise in amplifying the brand’s remarkable heritage. “When you look at Coca-Cola’s history, you’re looking at a lineage of the best artists, the best agencies, the best creative leaders, all shaping this one brand over generations.
“That’s a legacy. So the real question wasn’t how do you top it, it was how do you build on it and set it up for the next 140 years? Our job was to find what makes Coca-Cola the most recognisable version of itself, then amplify it for today. Think of it as a love letter to what makes Coca-Cola, Coca-Cola. The answer was never going to come from somewhere outside the brand. It was always going to be found within it.”
While the identity aims to unify Coca-Cola globally, the company is keen to stress that consistency doesn’t mean uniformity. “Our goal wasn’t to create a rigid global system,” says Rapha Abreu, global vice president of design at The Coca-Cola Company. “It was to create a stronger one, more iconic than ever.”
Abreu likens the system to “designing the operating system rather than every application”, with core assets remaining consistent while markets retain flexibility over photography, messaging, partnerships and cultural activations. “That balance between consistency and flexibility is what allows Coca-Cola to feel both globally iconic and locally meaningful,” he says.
Beyond the visual identity itself, Coca-Cola has also introduced an immersive Brand Center alongside AI-powered Design Intelligence tools designed to help internal teams and agency partners implement the system at scale. Abreu describes the technology as equally important to the project. “Creating a refined visual identity was only half the work,” he says. “The other half was making sure it could be implemented consistently across one of the world’s largest and most complex brand ecosystems.”
The initiative represents a broad collaborative effort, with design company The Superultrarare developing the global packaging system, Brody Associates creating a proprietary typeface, Forpeople and Monks building the Brand Center, Adobe developing governance tools, and photographers Guy Aroch, Anna Palma and Martin Wonnacott establishing new image standards.
Hall sees that collaborative approach as central to the outcome. “This was a huge collaboration between Coca-Cola’s in-house design team, our team, and external agencies and partners,” he says. “The best of the best, working side by side to create what’s next, while celebrating what people already love from Coca-Cola.”