From print posters in Paris to computer-animated television
Coca-Cola elevated its polar bear into one of its most recognised characters in 1993, when Northern Lights premiered as part of the Always Coca-Cola campaign.1, 2 The bear had quietly accompanied the brand for decades. Coca-Cola's first polar bear print advertisement appeared in France in 1922, and for the next 70 years polar bears surfaced sporadically in posters and seasonal print work.1 The shift in 1993 brought the bear into a different visual register through computer animation, anchoring a campaign that would set the tone for Coca-Cola advertising through the rest of the decade.
The CAA campaign that introduced 27 spots
Always Coca-Cola was developed by Creative Artists Agency and later by Edge Creative, comprising an initial run of 27 commercials targeted at distinct audiences.1, 3 The campaign deliberately used a wide range of techniques across its films, with computer animation positioned as one of the more conspicuous innovations.1 Northern Lights set the bears against an Arctic night sky to watch the aurora borealis as their "movie," drinking glass bottles of Coca-Cola in unison.1 The film's visual ease concealed a 12-week production cycle.1
Creator Ken Stewart described the spark as personal. He had been thinking about drinking Coca-Cola at the cinema, and noticed that his Labrador Retriever puppy resembled a polar bear; the analogue suggested a scene of bears watching the lights together.1, 2 Animation studio Rhythm & Hues built the bears in three dimensions, beginning with a clay sculpture of a bear's head that was scanned and translated into a wireframe.2, 3 Animators studied film and photographs of real polar bears to capture how the head, body and limbs moved.1 Storyboards by illustrator Eugene Yelchin governed each second of action.1
A character built without dialogue
The films contained almost no spoken dialogue, only the occasional grunts, oohs and ahs that Stewart performed himself on a sound stage and altered through a computer to give them their bear-like timbre.1 Original music for the world of the bears was composed by Glenn Rueger at Outside Music, with sound effects by Weddington Productions.1 Stewart kept music to a minimum to preserve the magical and ethereal quality of the bears, restricting it to punctuation rather than narrative.1
Several spots followed the 1993 debut. Two commercials produced for the 1994 Lillehammer Olympic Games sent the bear down a luge track and off a ski jump; a holiday film introduced bear cubs choosing a Christmas tree.1 The polar bear extended Coca-Cola's repertoire of recurring brand characters and offered an animated companion to the contour bottle, subsequently appearing in print, in retail, and across seasonal communications.
Source: Mackenzie Rough Youtube
Written with AI assistance, edited by a human. Find out more about our Use of AI.
1. The Coca-Cola Company, "Coca-Cola's Polar Bears", page dated 20 July 2026 as read, for the first polar bear print advertisement in France in 1922 and the sporadic appearances of polar bears in print advertising over the next 70 years, for the 1993 introduction of the Always Coca-Cola campaign by Creative Artists Agency and later Edge Creative with an initial run of 27 commercials designed to appeal to specific audiences, for the campaign's variety of innovative technical approaches such as computer animation, for Northern Lights as the commercial that introduced the animated polar bear, with the bears watching the aurora borealis as their "movie" and drinking from bottles of Coca-Cola, for each ad taking some 12 weeks to produce, for creator Ken Stewart thinking about drinking Coke at the movies and his Labrador Retriever having resembled a polar bear as a puppy, for Stewart and the animators studying films and photos of actual polar bears to see how bears move their heads, bodies and limbs, for the storyboards illustrated by Eugene Yelchin, working with Stewart and CAA, by which each second of the action is accounted for, for the "oohs", "ahs" and grunts Stewart created on a sound stage with his own voice and altered through a computer, for the original music composed with Glenn Rueger at Outside Music and the sound effects created with Weddington Productions, for Stewart keeping the music to a minimum to maintain the magical and ethereal quality of the world of the bears, and for the two commercials for the 1994 Olympic Games in which the bear slid down a luge and soared off a ski jump, and the holiday ad that introduced bear cubs as the bear family selects its Christmas tree. https://www.coca-colacompany.com/about-us/history/coca-colas-polar-bears
2. The Coca-Cola Company, "Q&A With the Digital Artist Behind the Coca-Cola Polar Bears", 30 December 2013, the matching article for the Media Center the verse lists, for the polar bears' television debut in 1993 as part of the global Always Coca-Cola campaign, for creator Ken Stewart taking the idea for Northern Lights from his Labrador Retriever, which reminded him of a polar bear as a puppy, and for Stewart enlisting the Los Angeles based studio Rhythm & Hues, where a sculptor created a 3D clay model of the bear's head that was digitized and stored in computer graphics software and an animator plotted points along the model until a schematic of the bear appeared on screen. The Media Center itself is a bare index page that carries nothing on the polar bears. https://www.coca-colacompany.com/about-us/history/interview-with-digital-artist-behind-coca-cola-polar-bears https://www.coca-colacompany.com/media-center
3. Wikipedia, "List of Coca-Cola slogans" (the page the listed "Always Coca-Cola" link leads to), "Creative Artists Agency" and "Rhythm & Hues Studios", read 2 October 2026, for Always Coca-Cola as the slogan of 1993 in the United States and many other markets, for the Coca-Cola Company having placed CAA in charge of much of its marketing in 1992, alongside the advertising agency McCann Erickson, and for Rhythm & Hues Studios as a Los Angeles studio established in 1987. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Always_Coca-Cola https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_Artists_Agency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhythm_%26_Hues_Studios
