For Coca-Cola’s 40th-anniversary, the company has announced something surprising — that they will be appointing Kate Moss as the Creative Director of Diet Coke. This has caused some confusion for several reasons and, even worse, has caused controversy. Kate Moss is known as one of the most famous models on the planet, rising to worldwide fame in the 90s; styling high-fashion brands on the catwalk and appearing on the covers of many fashion-forward magazines. As most people will associate the celeb with this line of work, how exactly has she been deemed a good fit for Coca-Cola? Is this purely a publicity stunt with little work involved, or is it a case of more than meets the eye?
As part of Coca-Cola’s 40th-anniversary celebrations, the public has been given the chance to enter competitions. Their website states that if you purchase a promotional half-litre, two-litre or 8/10/12x330ml pack of Diet Coke and use the code provided on the product, you can earn ‘Diet Coke coins’ within their app (Coca-Cola, 2022). The buyer then uses the coins in competitions to win fashion rewards in prize draws; these rewards are selected by ‘fashion icon’ Kate Moss and include items from her favourite clothing brands. Moss will also work in the advertising department and take part in various brand events to promote the deals. The brand has even coined a new tagline: ‘Love What You Love’, which Moss hyped up as something that ‘connected’ with her (Cochrane, 2022). To her credit, the fashion world veteran is a successful business owner already as she owns a talent agency that brought in £3 million worth of profits last year. Perhaps her experience in this enterprise earned her brownie points.
Or maybe it’s just her title. It wouldn’t be the first time the company has hired a famous model to showcase its products (remember the terrible Kendall Jenner advert?). Beyond this, it’s not uncommon for big companies to hire familiar faces to gain attention to the brand. Somewhat recently, the biggest controversy lay with Love Island winner Molly-Mae Hague when she was appointed Creative Director for clothing brand PrettyLittleThing. The star has subsequently earned millions thanks to this position, and is now considered Love Island’s most successful contestant (Grieveson-Smith, 2022). Molly-Mae shared an Instagram ad that broke the site’s social media content rules, as she shared a link to PrettyLittleThing’s website without clearly labelling the post as a paid advertisement; a big mistake for someone with such close ties to the company. This year’s Love Island runner-up, Gemma Owen, is another example of someone landing a big job for seemingly no reason other than their famous name. The reality TV star accepted a six-figure partnership with PrettyLittleThing after wearing their clothes throughout the 2022 summer season, despite being only nineteen years old with very little real-life experience in the business world (Wells, 2022). This proves an abundance of dubious ethics, and that certain companies may value their brand’s image and money enough to choose celebrities who don’t necessarily understand a lot about ethically promoting their products (see: fast fashion and workers’ rights).
On another pessimistic note, it is no secret that Diet Coke (see: the first of the two words) fits snugly into diet culture, with the zero-calorie drink used as a substitute for the full-fat, full-sugar original Coca-Cola. Toxic diet culture is seen most acutely in the modelling world, with many designers and companies to this day encouraging their models to stay in shape and keep a watchful eye on their eating habits. Though we have seen much improvement in the last couple of decades with the body positivity movement, eating disorders are still rife in the community. It might feel like a slap in the face that Kate was offered the position she was, as she is considered by many as the 90s picture-child for thin models who are more at risk for restricting their calorie intake, and she herself has been shamed for promoting ED related thought patterns with her famous phrase ‘nothing tastes as good as skinny feels’ (Selwood, 2022). Many argue that Coca-Cola’s decision to give her the Creative Director job was distasteful, and not in line with the inclusive modernity we expect to see promoted by food and drink companies in 2022.
But is there evidence that the ‘heroin chic’ model made any efforts to improve her image over the years? Her notorious quote, stated in an interview with Women’s Wear Daily in 2009 (Selwood, 2022), was not met without criticism from health campaigners who were disappointed particularly as many young, impressionable girls were prone to looking up to beautiful models. Nine years later, after a long period of living up to her reputation as the reckless size zero party girl, she finally admitted how much she regretted coining the motto. It seems Moss may have turned a corner when it comes to this dangerous line of thinking. As a responsible mother who donates to multiple charitable endeavours, she now tends to avoid the heavy partying (and retrospectively had even cracked a joke that she’d always loved coke… just maybe not exclusively the drink) (O’Connor, 2022) and these days focuses on a lifestyle of sobriety, yoga and healthy eating.
Figure 1: Kate Moss in a Diet Coke ad, The Grocer.
References
Coca-Cola (2022). Diet Coke x Kate Moss [online advertisement]. Available at: https://www.coca-cola.co.uk/app/dietcoke (Accessed 25/08/22).
Cochrane, L. (2022). ‘Kate Moss named latest creative director of Diet Coke’, The Guardian [online]. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2022/jul/01/kate-moss-named-latest-creative-director-of-diet-coke (Accessed 25/08/22).
Grieveson-Smith, J. (2022). ‘Love Island’s Molly Mae ‘most successful’ islander making post-show profit of over £2 million’, Hertfordshire Mercury [online]. Available at: https://www.hertfordshiremercury.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/love-islands-molly-mae-most-7383856 (Accessed 25/08/22).
O’Connor, R. (2022). ‘Cheeky Kate Moss gets the laughs as she jokes she’s ‘always loved coke’ at Diet Coke launch’, Metro [online]. Available at: https://metro.co.uk/2022/07/22/kate-moss-jokes-shes-always-loved-coke-at-diet-coke-launch-17048659/ (Accessed 25/08/22).
Selwood, D. (2022). ‘Is Kate Moss really the best partner for Diet Coke in the ‘body positive’ era?’, The Grocer [online]. Available at: https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/the-grocer-blog-daily-bread/is-kate-moss-really-the-best-partner-for-diet-coke-in-the-body-positive-era/669119.article (Accessed 25/08/22).
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