A product that sells itself is a bit of a double-edged sword for brand marketers. Sure, quality alone is enough to lure shoppers in, but where’s the fun in that? Minute Maid Zero Sugar is tackling the old industry adage head-on with its first global campaign, “Sells Itself,” a bid to drive greater sales frequency for the better-for-you beverage option that launched in 2020. Chiefly, the brand is angling to convert juice-averse consumers who associate the category with high sugar counts as zero-sugar offerings become a growth driver across parent Coke’s portfolio.

“We’re looking for juice skeptics,” said Alex Ames, creative director of nutrition at The Coca-Cola Company, in an interview. “The number one barrier to juice is sugar, and consumers, we’ve found, were not as aware of Minute Maid Zero Sugar as we would want them to be.”

“Sells Itself” takes a tongue-in-cheek approach to promoting Minute Maid Zero Sugar to nonbelievers, seeking to emphasize an unfussy positioning. In a series of new ads, actor Jon Hamm prepares to hawk the product, only to realize that his doing so is redundant. One spot depicts Hamm, dressed in a sharp suit and tie recalling his Don Draper days, as he rehearses the lines “great taste, zero sugar” in front of a mirror before a voiceover kicks in. 

“We wanted Jon Hamm to be in our Minute Maid Zero Sugar ad,” the narrator says. “But great taste and zero sugar didn’t need Jon Hamm to be in the ad at all … so we shot it without it him.” 

The commercial closes with Hamm walking up to the shoot only to step onto a darkened, barren set. In another ad, Hamm arrives on a studio lot to begin filming and is quickly confronted by a production team that hurries him to hold up a bottle of Minute Maid Zero Sugar and read his lines. It dawns on the “Fargo” star that the rushed rehearsal might actually be the ad, with the video closing on him asking in befuddlement, “Are we rolling?” Complementing the Hamm-led creative are purely product-centric videos that put a bottle of the beverage front and center.   

Minute Maid Zero Sugar is focusing its first paid media effort on digital and social, channels that provide better targeting and more flexibility for running variations of creative, according to Ames. Studio X, the execution arm of WPP’s bespoke Open X unit for Coke, spearheaded “Sells Itself.” Additional campaign support was provided by X&O, Essence Mediacom, United Talent Agency, Zeno Group and Ogilvy.

Spotify, iHeartRadio, Meta and Snapchat are some of the places where “Sells Itself” will appear, along with several streaming platforms. Additional elements include a 24-hour Pinterest search page takeover and Coke’s first use of a TikTok Branded Mission feature that allows advertisers to crowdsource content from a diverse pool of creators and flip well-performing videos into ads. Fitting with the campaign’s larger ethos, the TikTok creator brief was simple. 

“What is you doing less to sell a product? If you’re someone who does the most, how do you do the least?” said Ames. 

Keeping it light

“Sells Itself” builds on a refresh for the larger Minute Maid brand that kicked off last year, the first leg of a marketing program to get the decades-old product “back to iconicity,” according to Ames. “Filled with Life” was Minute Maid’s first global campaign and introduced a unified new look inclusive of warmer colors and a softer typeface.  

“Over the years, for a lot of reasons, we haven’t been spending as much time with Minute Maid. The first step was that global relaunch,” Ames said. “We needed to start with that new palette and that new idea of what we stand for with vitality and how we bring fruit and juice into that.” 

While Coke is ramping up its ambitions for Minute Maid, “Sells Itself” kept things light on the messaging and production front. Hamm was picked as the celebrity face due to his role in pop culture as a “consummate pitch person,” said Ames, noting the actor’s Wikipedia page has a dedicated section to his work for companies such as Mercedes-Benz and H&R Block. Minute Maid has a rich history of leveraging pitchmen, with past representatives for the orange juice and lemonade purveyor including Bing Crosby and Robert Loggia.  

Because the brief was so simple, Hamm and director Clay Weiner had room to riff on “Sells Itself,” leading to some of the campaign’s best ideas and takes. The shoot also wrapped early, which Ames believed was a first in his career. 

“When we went on set, we didn’t even have an approved script,” said Ames. “We had some script objects, but no one’s going to out-Hamm the Hamm.”

Flattening the funnel

“Sells Itself” has some traditional media buys, such as out-of-home placements in high-traffic locations. But for the most part, the focus has shifted away from the broadcast channels that defined the Crosby and Loggia days. The commercials will run on Vizio, Hulu, Amazon, Roku, Canela Media, BET, YouTube, Fuse and One Digital. 

Minute Maid is among the marketers that are jumping on Amazon’s introduction of ads to Prime Video, a change that took effect in late January to some user consternation. Amazon’s ability to link ads with its bustling e-commerce marketplace aligned with the “Sells Itself” concept, and Ames said his team is working with other platforms to find endemic ways to get product moving. 

“The great thing about Amazon and the ad tier is it has that breadth, as well as that connection to retail,” said Ames.

“I don’t think there are a lot of options out there that are as big of media channels with that connection to retail media,” he continued. “When we’re selling a product that is not buying a new car, having that immediacy of being able to run this content near the point of purchase helps to flatten the funnel.”