Coca-Cola Argentina Bets on Character Comedy to Sell Coke Zero Sugar
Coca-Cola's 'Dino, Sally & Molly' campaign is a series of comedic short films produced by Mercado McCann and published in Argentina in August 2021 to introduce a reformulated Coke Zero Sugar, inviting consumers to decide for themselves whether it is the best Coke ever made.
The campaign belongs to a broader creative platform titled 'Best Coke Ever?' which Coca-Cola Argentina launched in April 2021. Rather than asserting product superiority outright, the platform poses the question directly to consumers — a structural confidence signal that transforms a product claim into a participatory challenge. The 'Dino, Sally & Molly' executions, published on August 13 and 14, 2021 according to Clapboard's archive, represent the campaign's most distinctive creative chapter within that platform.
In Argentina, the campaign operated within the non-alcoholic drinks category, targeting consumers who are health-conscious yet unwilling to compromise on the taste experience associated with Coca-Cola. The product proposition is straightforward: Coke Zero Sugar has been newly improved and is now more delicious than ever. The invitation to 'try it and find out' functions simultaneously as a call to action and a declaration of reformulation confidence, addressing a well-documented consumer scepticism toward sugar-free alternatives. Mercado McCann, the Buenos Aires-based agency led by Chief Creative Officer Martín Mercado according to records documented at thecreativesroom.com, anchored the campaign's creative identity in relatable, absurdist characters — a dinosaur named Dino, and a ventriloquist act featuring Sally and Molly — to carry the taste message through comedy rather than direct product demonstration. The Clapboard Score for 'Dino, Sally & Molly' is 66 out of 100.
Coca-Cola Argentina entered the 'Best Coke Ever?' platform in response to a well-established consumer tension in the sugar-free drinks segment. The central strategic insight is that zero-sugar beverages carry a persistent perception gap — consumers expect taste compromise, and that expectation functions as a barrier to trial regardless of product quality. By inverting the conventional product launch structure and asking a question rather than making a declaration, Mercado McCann's strategy for 'Dino, Sally & Molly' treated scepticism as creative fuel rather than an obstacle to overcome through messaging volume.
The competitive landscape in Argentina and globally reinforces why this positioning matters. The Coca-Cola Company held approximately 48% global soft-drink market share in 2021, according to Grand View Research, while PepsiCo held approximately 20.5% over the same period, according to Ken Research. Within the carbonated drinks segment, cola generated more than 56% of global carbonated-beverage revenue in 2021, according to SkyQuestT — a figure that underscores both the scale of the category and the strategic weight of any reformulation decision Coca-Cola makes. PepsiCo's Pepsi Zero Sugar and its ongoing taste-led positioning represent the most direct competitive pressure on Coke Zero Sugar in Argentina's carbonated drinks market, making a credible taste claim not merely a marketing choice but a category imperative.
Mercado McCann's strategic approach also reflects a broader shift in Coca-Cola Argentina's communications toward taste-led, zero-sugar product innovation anchored in character-driven storytelling. Rather than relying on aspirational lifestyle imagery common to the category, the agency grounded the 'Dino, Sally & Molly' campaign in everyday absurdist scenarios — a creative register that signals authenticity and generates organic audience engagement in the Argentine market. The campaign's planning and strategy were led by Pilar Echeverría, according to thecreativesroom.com, whose consumer framing shaped the participatory 'try it and find out' architecture at the campaign's core.
Mercado McCann executed 'Dino, Sally & Molly' as two distinct 15-second comedic films, each built around an unlikely character scenario designed to carry a single, clean product message. The creative approach rejects extended product demonstration in favour of compressed comic timing — a format discipline that demands precision in both writing and direction to land the taste proposition within a short running time.
The 'Dino' spot deploys a dinosaur-and-meteorite premise, a scenario that leans into geological absurdity to reframe the product's 'new and improved' claim in comic terms, according to Clapboard's campaign record. The 'Sally & Molly' spot features a ventriloquist and puppet dynamic, a comedic pairing that exploits the inherent tension of a performer and their alter ego to mirror the consumer's own internal debate about whether zero sugar can truly deliver on taste. Both executions share a structural logic: the comic premise creates distance from a direct sales message, and that distance makes the invitation to trial feel genuine rather than promotional.
The creative team behind the campaign, documented by thecreativesroom.com, was led by Chief Creative Officer Martín Mercado and Executive Creative Directors Juan Pablo Lufrano and Nicolás Massimino. The writing and ideation credits are shared among creatives Edwin Bowen, Manuel Scher, and Marina Stern. Together, this team built a creative system that could accommodate multiple executional scenarios — the dinosaur, the ventriloquist — under a single question-led platform, demonstrating the scalability of the 'Best Coke Ever?' idea across different comedic registers. Mercado McCann's experience with large-scale Coca-Cola campaigns, including the 'Being Ready' platform developed for the FIFA World Cup Russia 2018 and distributed across approximately 200 countries according to adlatina.com, established the agency's fluency in translating global Coca-Cola brand architecture into locally resonant Argentine creative work. Production credits beyond the named creative team for 'Dino, Sally & Molly' are not fully documented in public sources.
The 'Dino' film accumulated 185,905 views, 2,561 likes, and 411 comments according to Clapboard's performance data, representing a level of audience engagement that exceeds passive consumption and signals active opinion formation around the product's reformulation claim. A comment volume of 411 on a 15-second product spot is structurally significant: it suggests the 'try it and find out' invitation generated genuine consumer debate, which is precisely the participatory response the 'Best Coke Ever?' platform was designed to produce.
The like-to-view ratio for the 'Dino' execution reflects a selective but genuinely engaged audience subset — the campaign attracted viewers willing to commit a response rather than scroll past, consistent with the provocative question-led platform strategy. The comment count in particular indicates that the dinosaur scenario succeeded in making Coke Zero Sugar's taste reformulation a talking point rather than a background claim, which is the primary creative objective for a product relaunch competing against deeply embedded consumer assumptions about sugar-free flavour.
No independently verified sales or market share movement data for Coca-Cola Argentina during the August 2021 campaign window is publicly available. The structural effectiveness of the campaign rests on its ability to convert comedy-driven curiosity into trial — a mechanism that is difficult to isolate from broader distribution and pricing activity in the Argentine market during that period. The Clapboard Score of 66 out of 100 reflects a campaign that executes its comedic format with competence and strategic clarity, while leaving room in creative ambition and measurable impact for the platform to develop further across subsequent executions.
'Dino, Sally & Molly' is a Coca-Cola campaign created by Mercado McCann in Argentina in August 2021. It promotes the reformulated Coke Zero Sugar through two comedic 15-second films featuring a dinosaur and a ventriloquist act, asking consumers to decide whether the new product is the best Coke ever made.
Mercado McCann, the Buenos Aires-based agency, created the campaign. The creative team was led by Chief Creative Officer Martín Mercado, Executive Creative Directors Juan Pablo Lufrano and Nicolás Massimino, and creatives Edwin Bowen, Manuel Scher, and Marina Stern, according to thecreativesroom.com.
The campaign promotes Coke Zero Sugar's reformulated recipe in Argentina. Coca-Cola positioned the new product as potentially the best Coke ever made, using the 'Best Coke Ever?' platform launched in April 2021, with the 'Dino, Sally & Molly' executions published in August 2021 according to Clapboard's archive.
The campaign features two distinct character scenarios. The 'Dino' spot uses a dinosaur and meteorite premise, while 'Sally & Molly' centres on a ventriloquist and puppet duo. Both 15-second comedic films were created by Mercado McCann to carry the Coke Zero Sugar taste reformulation message through absurdist humour.
The 'Dino' film recorded 185,905 views, 2,561 likes, and 411 comments according to Clapboard's performance data. The comment volume is particularly notable for a 15-second product spot, indicating the 'try it and find out' invitation generated active consumer debate around the Coke Zero Sugar reformulation claim in Argentina.
'Dino, Sally & Molly' received a Clapboard Score of 66 out of 100. The score reflects competent comedic execution and clear strategic alignment with the 'Best Coke Ever?' platform, while indicating room for the campaign to develop greater creative ambition and measurable audience impact across future executions in the Argentine market.
.webp)
Creative Collaboration Platform: The Backbone of Modern Creative WorkWhat is a creative collaboration platform?Clapboard defines a creative collaboration platform as the operational core for today’s distributed creative teams. This is not a collection of digital collaboration tools stitched together; Clapboard’s system
Understanding the Creative Production MarketplaceWhat is a Creative Production Marketplace?Clapboard defines a creative production marketplace as a structured ecosystem where brands, agencies, and production talent converge to execute video, advertising, and branded content at scale. Unlike the legacy agency or freelanREAD FULL ARTICLE
The Urgent Need for a Creative Production Operating SystemWhy Traditional Creative Production Models Break DownClapboard sees the creative production landscape shifting under pressure. Content velocity is no longer a buzzword—it’s a mandate. Modern advertising demands relentless output across dozens of channels, each wREAD FULL ARTICLE
