Daft Punk’s Gold-Plated Coke Bottles Are More Daft Than Punk

When I heard about Coca-Cola’s latest marketing stunt--a limited-edition run of Coke bottles stamped with 18-karat gold, co-branded with Daft Punk--I couldn’t help but be reminded of that Chase credit card commercial that shows a bunch of random objects being spray-painted gold and wonder just what the mothertrucking point actually is. I won’t deny it: I love Coke. And hey, Daft Punk is pretty cool, I guess. But does a light sprinkling of precious metal really turn a piece of trash into a "collector’s item"?

Apparently the new bottles, which are available at DaftCoke.com (although that site appears to be down at the moment), have a design that is supposed to evoke the electronica duo’s iconic robot helmets. You can get your sweet sugar water in a bottle stamped with gold or silver, but they’re "limited to 20 signed copies," according to Design Taxi. I’m not sure what kind of person would be in a huge rush to buy more than one, but at the very least, the bottle designs have improved since the last stunt that Coke and Daft Punk pulled earlier this year--those ones looked like cheesy Budweisers, whereas the new ones have that classy chrome-and-crimson look that has kept me a sheeplike devotee of Coke over Pepsi since the age of . . . well, actually I can’t remember when Coke got its hooks into me, but it was a long time ago.

But that’s the thing with certain brands, like Coke: Is there anyone on earth who isn’t already "a Coke person" or not? You either irrationally love this particular brand of diabetes-juice, or you probably don’t particularly care. Is the supposed halo effect of a popular-for-the-moment band plus some ginned-up artificial scarcity really going to change any hearts or minds on the matter? I’m not being sarcastic (well, at least not wholly sarcastic) here: I’m curious. What is the tangible return on investment from a campaign like this? Maybe one of our enlightened readers can educate me in the comments.

[via Design Taxi]