Coca-Cola hires director of The Bear for chaotic ad

Chris Storer, the creator of the runaway hit The Bear, is the director of Coca-Cola’s newest commercial. The ad is inspired by a recent episode from the show in which where we’re introduced to the extended family of main character Carmy for the first time. (While not eligible for an Emmy this time around, Fishes from season two will likely bring the show accolades in 2024 as the Christmas special to end all Christmas specials.)

The episode has been imitated to introduce the ‘extended family’ of Coca-Cola products – the first time bottles of Coca-Cola have been shown in a campaign alongside subsidiary products like Smart Water, Honest Kid juice boxes and Sprite.

New Guy, which shows a boyfriend meeting a large family on gameday, follows most of the same beats as in the original episode. The spot came together in collaboration with the agency Majority and was produced by Smuggler, which has been behind a string of great projects throughout 2023.

In Marketing Dive, Alex Ames from Coca-Cola explains how the idea was to create something that sat between Homer’s Odyssey and The Bear, with Smuggler helping them pull off the latter half with director Storer. The publication also revealed the scale of the campaign, which comprises almost 40,000 individual pieces of creative.

Before The Bear, Chris Storer worked as a producer on Bo Burnham’s 2018 coming-of-age tale Eighth Grade. As of late last year, The Bear was officially renewed for a third season.