COKE + KROGER

Brand Store

Role: Creative Director
Refresh: Early Spring 2021

Throughout the year, my team partnered with Coke and Kroger to update the beverage giant’s presence on the grocery chain’s website. Each refresh required shooting several recipes featuring Coke products in time fresh, at-home scenes.

BETTER FOR YOU MEALS / SHOOT DAY 1

We captured these New Years Resolution-ready meals shot while preparing for a healthy lunch in a sunbright kitchen. Every image has a pop of color and highlights the produce that makes these recipes firmly part of the “better for you” category.

Moodboard + Palette

Styling:

  • Bright, colorful photography highlighted produce items within each recipe and signals to consumers that these recipes are fresher, lighter.

  • We styled the kitchen with dining accessories that brought out the vibrant ingredients of these “better for you” recipes.

  • For recipes with less vibrant colors (browns), we made them pop more against bright colored dishes.

  • Our guiding palette was the Kroger brand palette as it which paired perfectly with Coke product branding and used appetizing colors.

Marble Surface

Brand Store Page

For the Early Spring 2021 refresh, we also tackled a new template format and a launch of the 2021 Together Tastes Better look and feel from Coke. Our photoshoot needed to look like a natural extension of existing creative, while still bringing something fresh to the table.

HOME VIEWING / SHOOT DAY 2

Normally, this shoot would have been March Madness themed and heavy with basketball motifs and implications of big parties hosted at home. Due of lack of assurances that scheduled games would go as planned in 2021, these photos did not include sports-specific imagery. Instead, styling was “Team Coke” with a dark, blue countertop and darker accessories to make food and Coke branding gleam against the surface. 

Moodboard

Styling:

  • Everything was casual finger food and looked like it was being served at a home kitchen for a small gathering.

  • Warmer-toned, late afternoon lighting made the food more appealing with highlights to make proteins appear the freshest. Shadows added the sense that the light is coming from behind the food, as if from a window.  

  • Grey and darker kitchen accessories let the recipes and Coke be the star in this shoot.

  • The denim-colored surface and bright reds equally represented the Kroger and Coke brands

Denim Surface

Brand Store Page

For this refresh, we also tackled a new template format and a launch of the 2021 Together Tastes Better look and feel from Coke. These photos needed to fit with the home viewing occasion photos that already existed, but bring in a Kroger element as well.

Creative Considerations

  • I spoke with the photographer, food stylist, and client ahead of the shoot and walked them through a production book that detailed products needed for the day of as well as a detailed schedule.

  • We shot all 12 images, including 10 separate recipes and 2 group photos in two days

  • Our team included a retoucher for updating not-yet-available product labels and last minute cleanup, so we were careful to take shots of blank surfaces and individual plates for easier compositing just in case.