Artwork by street artist Zevs, known for creating dripping iconic logos. This is Coca-cola Wood, image courtesy Art Statements Gallery Hong Kong.

In an attempt to double their revenue by 2020 to $200 billion, Coca-Cola has decided to target teens. According to a recent AdAge article, Shay Drohan, senior VP of sparkling brands said, “We can’t afford not to talk to teens. You can’t think, ‘Teens already know us,’ and skip a couple of years. Every six years there’s a new population of teens in the world.”

We congratulate them for stating something so obvious. So obvious in fact, that Coca-Cola must think they missed it or else they wouldn’t be talking about it being their big new mission. So how are they going to reach teens? Through Coca-Cola Music, a campaign to tackle 100 markets including the USA, China, India, Nigeria, and other countries with growing and enormous 13-19-year-old demographics.

As we’ve always said, music is the underlying, universal method to attract youth culture, however it is a tricky business because you have to be razor-sharp in knowing what type of music and how to apply the music strategy correctly to reach your target demographic. While no one really knows the exact budget for Coca-Cola Music you can estimate that this will be in the billions. Which makes getting this right absolutely vital. However, whoever’s choosing the music is out of touch with youth culture. On March 22, they are starting Coca-Cola Music with a program called 24hr Session, with none-other than Maroon 5. Yes! Maroon 5, the adult-contemporary band that most youth probably don’t know and if they do, would associate with their parents.

The 24hr Session will have an interactive component whereby fans can share opinions and ideas for lyrics and rhythms with the band while they create a song in 24 hours. This is about the only good aspect in this program (assuming of course, that you can get around the fact that the band is Maroon 5).

In addition, Coca-Cola partnered with an unknown up-and-coming band form the UK, One Night Only and British singer Taio Cruz who have written a track called “Can You Feel It” featuring Coke’s classic 5-note melody. (Already this is starting to go down the path of horror when a brand gets too close to a band.) Nothing against the UK, but their youth population is a fraction of the size of the United States, so why choose an up-and-coming band from the UK rather than the U.S.? And let’s be honest: using the Coke jingle, remixed as songs is really just an ad. Teens aren’t that stupid.

Wieden & Kennedy Amsterdam is taking this melody and will be working with other artists that teens select in other markets to create a soundtrack (of the same song with those same 5 notes).

The only winners in this project (other than Wieden & Kennedy) is Universal Music Group which is working with Coca-Cola on bringing their artists to the table to create this so-called music.

In other oddball Coca-Cola music news, they’ve also launched a limited-edition bottle and box collection with Daft Punk (yes, another oldie) with gold and silver bottles to be sold at the Paris concept store colette starting March 21.