After years as one of the most memorable soft drinks in Australia, Coca-Cola has announced a new campaign called Pemberton, after the Atlanta pharmacist, Dr John Pemberton (he invented Coke 122 years ago, allegedly as a form of health tonic).

The main points that the campaign is aimed at is reassuring consumers that Coca-cola has no added preservatives or artificial flavours and it hasn’t changed since it was concocted in 1886.

Research made by the soft drink goliath showed that 87 percent of Australians’ think Coca-Cola contains artificial flavours and 84 percent believe it contains added preservatives, statistics that are no doubt alarming for the company.

But that’s not all – 65 percent of those studied believe that the formula for Coca-Cola has changed at some point or is constantly changing with technology and new ingredients… possibly because of the New Coke debacle in the 80s.

The Pemberton campaign has been designed by the company to tackle the perception (or as the company puts it, the ‘untrue but widely held view’) that Coca-Cola is artificial – assumingly aimed at non-consumers such the Newspup.

The ‘No added preservatives. No artificial flavours. Since 1886′ slogan has been adapted in Australia from a global campaign that has already launched in Israel, the UK, Spain and Canada, a campaign that includes a TVC, Out-of-Home, print, on pack messaging and PR pushing.

This also includes new slim-line mini cans, which will be available from Woolworths from November.

“Our research has highlighted that there is still a need and an opportunity to remind consumers that Coca-Cola is the ‘real thing’”, says Lucie Austin, regional marketing director for Coca-Cola South Pacific.

“The Pemberton campaign is simply about letting consumers know that the formula for Coca-Cola has not changed for more than 120 years.”

Coca-cola employed Argentinean agency, Santo, for its creative, adapted locally by Singleton, Ogilvy & Mather. It sourced out its communications strategy to Naked.