Diet Coke is getting a Marc Jacobs makeover. The designer has been named creative director of the pop for 2013. I guess growing a third eye from aspartame is in style for spring.
Jacobs’ design for the cans will be unveiled later this month in 11 European countries. Coinciding with Diet Coke’s 30th anniversary, there will be three Jacobs-designed bottles each inspired by a decade of the pop’s life: ’80s, ’90s and ’00s. They will be “whimsical” and “feminine” he told WWD.
Jacobs takes the reigns from Jean Paul Gaultier. As creative director in 2012, the French designer styled Diet Coke bottles in two Gaultier signatures: navy stripes and a Madonna-esque cone bra corset. In 2011, Chanel’s Karl Lagerfeld chose prints for the soft drink bottles, including cotton-candy pink stripes and silver dots.
The announcement was made as a Diet Coke print ad was unveiled, featuring Jacobs himself modelling shirtless in a photo booth-inspired shoot. An accompanying TV commercial for “Coke Light”, presumably for a European market, was also released, featuring three women lurking outside a photo booth while Jacobs takes “sexy” selfies.Outdoor ads are set to follow.
Jacobs, who says he drinks two or three cans of Diet Coke a day, is already a walking advertisement for the pop. In 2007, he unveiled his dramatic weight loss, though it had a lot more to do with his organic diet and daily two-hour exercise routine. He had even given up caffeine at the time. In 2010, he posed naked in ads for his fragrance Bang.
“I still think it’s hysterical people want me to take my shirt off,” he told WWD. “You know, I’m going to be 50 in two months, so I guess I should be glad. It feels like the decade of me taking my shirt off.”
Do people really want Jacobs to take his shirt off though? If I get a vote, I vote no. Jacobs’ is supposed to be a tastemaker, yet his second act career as a model is so cheeseball. I don’t blame him though. If I spent two hours a day at the gym, I’d probably want it on a billboard too.
Check out Marc Jacobs commercial for Diet Coke:
