I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke

1971 was the start of an interesting era for television.

While Ed Sullivan waved good night for the last time to his long-running variety show, Norman Lear’s trailblazing show All in the Family premiered, and audiences were introduced to a wholesome family called The Waltons, and a rumpled detective named Columbo.

Cigarette ads were finally banned, and in July of that year one of television’s most memorable commercials, a groundbreaking multicultural hilltop sing-along about love and hope, aired for the first time.

Coca-Cola’s TV ad “Hilltop” or “I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke” is still considered by many to be one of the greatest commercials of all time.

An Idea Takes Flight

Bill Backer, an executive at the McCann Erickson advertising agency and creative director of the Coca-Cola account at the time, got the idea after watching irate passengers of an unplanned layover enjoying a Coke together the next day.

He began to see a bottle of Coca-Cola as more than a drink – Coke is a bond that connects people, he thought. On a napkin, he scribbled the line “I’d like to buy the world a Coke and keep it company.”

With the help of singers and songwriters Billy Davis and Roger Cook, the creative team completed the lyrics and reworked a melody Cook had written with longtime collaborator Roger Greenaway.

Here is Bill Backer playing and singing the jingle himself.

The ad was originally produced for radio and it didn’t do well. Feedback from Coca-Cola bottlers was not good and most refused to buy airtime for it. At the urging of its creators, Coca-Cola agreed to repackage the song as a television commercial.

Based on a concept by art director Harvey Gabor called “The First United Chorus of the World”, a hillside in England was chosen as the setting.

Inclement weather, however, forced the crew to switch locations and countries, moving the production from England to Italy. With a large cast and numerous re-shoots, the ad went on to cost $250,000, the most expensive commercial in history, at that time.

Pop Song

Once the completed TV ad aired in the summer of 1971, audience reaction was quick and enthusiastic. Within 10 days of the U.S. release, Coca-Cola received 10,000 letters from consumers about the ad. By the end of November, more than a hundred thousand letters were received.

The folkie tune dripping with hippie sentimentality became so popular that it was re-recorded as “I’d like to Teach the World to Sing (In Perfect Harmony)”, a standalone single without any references to Coke.

Both the New Seekers and The Hillside Singers turned the song into a Top 40 hit.

More than 75 renditions of the song have been recorded.

Other Versions

A Christmas version of the commercial was produced and broadcasted in 1977.

In 1990, “Hilltop Reunion” was aired during Super Bowl XXIV coverage. The commercial brought together the original cast and their children.

In 2010, the song was repurposed to promote the 2010 NASCAR season in an ad called “Harmony”.

Mad Men Finale

In May 2015, the famous commercial made an unexpected appearance in the series finale of Mad Men, implying that the main character Don Draper was involved in its creation.

When Backer, who now raises horses and cattle on a farm in Virgina, was asked by CNN Money what he thought about the Mad Men ending, he said, “I don’t know what to make of it.”

McCann Erickson advertising agency had a little fun with the idea.