Passion Pictures’ director againstallodds has produced their first major international TV commercial campaign for Coke Zero featuring animated characters that are body parts: an eyeball, a couple of tongues, a finger and a brain. The campaign was devised by creatives Blake Kidder and Patrick Almaguer of Wieden & Kennedy Amsterdam. The premise of the campaign is that the sugar-free product Coke Zero tastes just like real Coke. In a series of humorous encounters, the characters argue about the taste of the drink.
AAO executive producer Josh Thorne says, “From the very start, we loved the Coke Zero scripts from W&K, which were very funny and offered enormous creative scope for us, both in terms of the design of the characters and in the animation. Director Derek Picken was totally into the idea to make the characters as photo-real as possible and Niklas Rissler our animation director who’s worked very closely with Derek on this project has done a fabulous job overseeing the small nuances of body language required to convey each line spoken by the characters.” Passion Pictures executive producer Michael Adamo adds, “This is one that will turn heads. I mean, when was the last time you had a cast of body parts selling soft drinks? I have to applaud Wieden & Kennedy. From the beginning it was a daring concept and the choice of Againstallodds’ photo-real treatment made it more so. The combination of AAO’s brilliant animation, Wieden’s hilarious scripts and Coke’s courage is sure to make it a memorable campaign.”
The computer animation was built and animated using Maya, rendered using Mental Ray and composited using After FX.

Length: 30 sec.; Client: Coca Cola; Product: Coke Zero; Agency: Wieden & Kennedy Amsterdam; Creatives: Blake Kidder, Patrick Almaguer; Producer: Cheryl Warbrook, Sandy Reay, Orlando Wood; Production Company: againstallodds / Passion Pictures; Director: againstallodds; Creative Director: Derek Picken; Animation Director: Niklas Rissler; Executive Producer: Josh Thorne (AAO), Michael Adamo (Passion); Producer: Lottie Hope (Passion); Producer/Prod Manager: Anna Molund

againstallodds (SE) was formed in 2003 by executive producer Josh Thorne and Australian-born creative director Derek Picken and is based in Stockholm, Sweden. Although neither of the partners is Swedish, they met while working in the motion-graphics sector in Sweden and their studio draws on the local design and animation talent pool available in the city. Their work spans a range of styles including 2D and 3D animation, and live action/mixed media for commercials and music videos.

Passion Pictures signed "aao" for representation in Europe in 2007.