• by Karl Greenberg , June 14, 2013

Home carbonation system SodaStream may not have gotten the spot it wanted on the Super Bowl, but it is getting a lot of attention in the U.S. and elsewhere for contentious creative that calls out plastic bottles, politicians, recycling, and Big Soda. 

The company on Friday ran a full-page ad in USA Today, TheNew York Times, the Chicago Tribune and the San Francisco Chronicle using the evolving-man motif to show the evolution of the soda drinker. The company has also been running an overtly political video in Belgium about plastic recycling that features an actor who -- thanks to facial prosthetics (and the right body type) -- looks just like the country's federal minister Johan Vande Lanotte announcing that under his leadership, Belgium will be driving up the tax on plastic bottles and eventually banning them. At the end, the actor reveals himself, saying that Lanotte should be taking this action. The video supports environmental group 5 Gyres.

In the U.S., the company has three TV spots in rotation on cable and regional, including one that got booted from the Super Bowl by the networks and cable. The ad took a jab at Coke and Pepsi. The company instead ran a spot showing plastic bottles of soda disappearing, their contents spewing. Former CP&B creative director and Boulder resident supreme Alex Bogusky did the ads.

At the Cannes Film Festival, SodaStream has replaced 20-year sponsor Coca-Cola as the official beverage of the American Pavilion, where the company will raise funds for the 5 Gyres.

Ilan Nacasch, chief marketing officer, tells Marketing Daily that the company’s efforts in the U.S. include a partnership with Earth Day. "It's about the bottle; we are not trying to denigrate competitors. But the bottle industry is against us, and we have to say so, and sometimes that means being rebellious and controversial. We want to shake the complacency of consumers and industry, and the political body."

Nacasch says when the company, as it has done in the U.S., ran a guerrilla exhibit, an "environmental cage" full of plastic bottles from various soda makers, "we got that injunction from the local Coca-Cola bottler."

He says the company’s efforts elsewhere have not brought that kind of attention, although he suggests that it might have been sub rosa pressure from big advertisers that had broadcasters nix SodaStream media buys. “We aren’t considering them as our enemies. We want them to join the party.”