The most recognisable piece of Coca-Cola branding in Mexico is not a billboard or a television commercial. It is a red awning, worn by sun and rain, hanging over a taquería or a tienda de abarrotes in a neighbourhood that has been there for decades. The awning was not designed as advertising. It arrived with a refrigerator or a delivery, became part of the shopfront, and stayed there until it faded beyond recognition. Coca-Cola and DAVID Madrid looked at 12,700 of those awnings and saw the most authentic outdoor campaign the brand had ever accidentally run.
The Observation
Mexico’s changarros, taquerías, and tiendas de abarrotes are the country’s commercial backbone. These small neighbourhood businesses account for a significant share of daily food and beverage transactions across Mexico and are the primary point of sale for Coca-Cola in thousands of communities. The relationship between the brand and these stores is not transactional in the way that supermarket shelf placement is. It is generational. Families have owned the same tienda for decades. The red awning that arrived when the grandfather stocked his first Coca-Cola refrigerator has been providing shade to customers across multiple generations of the same neighbourhood.
When those awnings fade, they are typically replaced through standard brand maintenance processes. DAVID Madrid and WPP Open X identified the replacement moment as something worth treating differently.
The Campaign
Shades of Red launched in 2025 and treated each awning replacement as a cultural event rather than a logistical one. The campaign team documented the faded awnings before replacement, capturing the unique, sun-bleached shade of red that each one had developed through years of weathering. That specific, individual shade became the creative material.
The retired awnings were not discarded. They were repurposed into outdoor billboard material, cut and mounted as campaign executions that carried the exact colour of that specific shop’s history. The campaign also produced personalised Coca-Cola cans for each shop owner, printed in the specific faded shade of red from their individual awning, rather than the standard Coca-Cola red. Every participating shopkeeper received a can that was theirs alone, in a colour that belonged to their storefront and nobody else’s.
A hero film documented the stories of the shopkeepers behind the awnings, placing individual human faces on a campaign that could otherwise have remained a design exercise. Social content and out-of-home activations extended the campaign across Mexico.
Islam ElDessouky, Global Vice President of Creative Strategy and Content at Coca-Cola, described the campaign’s core argument: “We’re honoured to celebrate the small businesses that have been at the heart of Coca-Cola’s story for generations. These awnings across Mexico symbolise shared moments, tradition and community. This campaign is our tribute to those who make Coca-Cola a part of their local culture.”
Pancho Cassis, Global CCO at DAVID, articulated the creative observation that made the campaign possible: “Coca-Cola’s biggest OOH campaign this year isn’t made of billboards. It’s made of the awnings that have witnessed everyday life unfold across Mexico.”
Why It Won
Shades of Red won a Gold Lion in Outdoor: Special Build at Cannes Lions 2025, alongside Bronze Lions in Outdoor: Consumer Goods and Brand Experience: Single Market Campaign. The Outdoor jury recognised it as a campaign that used the brand’s existing physical presence in the world as its creative raw material rather than manufacturing a new claim from outside.
The awning had been Coca-Cola’s longest-running outdoor advertising in Mexico for decades before anyone decided to call it that. Shades of Red did not create a brand relationship with Mexican small businesses. It acknowledged one that had been running, visibly, on storefronts across the country, for generations.
Campaign Name: Shades of Red / Sombras de Rojo
Agency Name: DAVID Madrid / WPP Open X / PR: Ogilvy PR / Production: Stink / Music: Pickle Music
Brand Name: Coca-Cola / The Coca-Cola Company Mexico
Location: Mexico (national; OOH, social media, hero film; 2025)
