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Hey folks. Welcome to Edition 102. We’re diving back into convergence (a favourite topic of ours!). This time, it’s where brands and movies meet.

This week's Spotlight: Coca-Cola & The Devil Wears Prada 2

Brands are pouring into film and TV at a record pace, and the smartest ones are now treating it as a cultural platform with a creative vision. In this edition, we look at what Coca-Cola's integration into The Devil Wears Prada 2 reveals about how to show up in a story authentically.

Plus Speed Reads of:

Let’s dive into it ⤵️

On May 1st, The Devil Wears Prada 2 hits theatres, and Coca-Cola will be hard to miss. Both Diet Coke and SmartWater will feature prominently in the sequel, part of an alliance between Coca-Cola and Walt Disney Co., whose relationship has spanned decades already.

But Coca-Cola are one of many brands that are reaching into film, TV, and gaming at an ever-increasing rate. Global spending on product placement reached an estimated $33 billion in 2024, according to PQ Media's Global Product Placement Forecast 2024-2028, and was projected to have a further 12.5% rise for 2025.

Stefan Rothenbuehler, a SEG3 London alumnus who leads music, culture and entertainment partnerships at Coca-Cola, said that for product placement to be successful, you have to understand the consumer before you choose the partner.

"We always say consumer first," he told us in our podcast, The Speakeasy. "It's this consumer centricity where we tap into their passion points. We really try to understand what is moving them, what activities, what passion points are relevant for them. And so then when we have identified that, we check which of our brands matches this passion point and to this target audience, to really have a perfect match."

That sounds straightforward, but it has significant implications for how Coca-Cola structures its film partnerships. Each brand in the portfolio carries a distinct identity, and the question is always which one belongs in a given cultural context.

And for Diet Coke, that DNA is slim, fashion-adjacent and centred around pop culture, making it belong in the offices of ‘Runway’, the fictional fashion media outlet at the heart of The Devil Wears Prada 2, in a way that Sprite or Fanta simply wouldn't.

So, consumer insights drive the brand choice, and the brand choice drives the creative.

→ Remember: Match brand to the moment, not just media. The question isn't whether your brand "fits" movies. It's whether this specific product fits this specific movie. A targeted approach means being deliberate about which brand shows up where and why.

The Devil Wears Prada 2 integration follows a playbook Coca-Cola refined through their Fanta and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice collaboration, which we covered in edition 75.

As Stefan shared with us on The Speakeasy, the Warner Bros. partnership worked because the alignment ran deeper than surface-level aesthetics. Fanta, a playful, innovation-led brand, found a story and an audience that matched at a DNA level in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice's quirky horror-comedy world. But spotting that fit was only the start.

What followed was a campaign that operated across every dimension of fan experience:

Organic fan participation - the kind that actually spreads across socials and communities - isn’t something you can force. It happens when the timing’s right, you’re in the right place, and what you’ve made is genuinely worth engaging with.

Stefan was explicit about why: "You can speak the language of Gen Z, but you need to play where they are living. Gen Z is very hard to impress. They always look for individuality and authenticity”.

→ Tip: Design for participation, not just visibility. The brands getting the most from film partnerships are further building experiences that fans can do something with: collect, share, unlock, trade etc.

One thing the Beetlejuice partnership shows is the importance of honouring the IP you're entering. The creative vision belongs to the filmmaker first, and the brand's job is to find a way to add a fun, authentic twist without pulling that vision off course. Tim Burton approved every single element of the Fanta creative, Stefan said, and that kind of deep creative collaboration is what separates an integration that feels like it belongs from one that feels bolted on.

"It's hard because you need to respect the brand DNA of Fanta, but also you need to respect the idea from the filmmakers," Stefan said. "It was literally a co-creation that went over several months”.

And so, with production costs rising, and the traditional routes of film financing shifting, brands are becoming an increasingly important part of how films get made, and filmmakers are becoming more open to their integration as a result.

It was a hot topic when I attended the San Sebastian's Creative Investors' Conference in 2025. After all, there is a lot of capital that can be unlocked in brand partnerships, with a growing number of brands looking to enter the space in meaningful ways, rather than just dropping products gratuitously into shots.

One good example is Tricky Knot, whose recent brand collaborations include working with Adidas on Baton, a football film with David Beckham directed by and starring Danny Ramirez (of Top Gun: Maverick fame). A football movie with Adidas involved is a match made in football - and filmmaking - heaven.

That being said, the challenge is finding the balance where the commercial partner can hit their goals and show up authentically, without pulling the story off course. Get that balance right, and brands can reach audiences in a far more nuanced way than traditional advertising ever could, particularly as those audiences grow increasingly savvy to conventional product placement.

The risk from a production side is that brand involvement can compromise creative vision. But producer Christine Vachon of Killer Films noted that the filmmakers she works with were pragmatists: if visions can be aligned, the commercial relationship can serve the creative one rather than undermining it. After all, you’ll do what it takes to get your movie made, right?

→ Tip: Treat the filmmaker as a creative partner, not a gatekeeper. Getting the director or showrunner genuinely invested in the brand integration is the difference between a placement that feels authentic and one that pulls audiences out of the story.

For a brand like Coca-Cola, the goal of a film partnership has nothing to do with awareness. Everyone already knows Coke.

What they are looking for is an emotional connection, rather than an instinctive, awareness-driven one. They want audiences to feel something when they see Coke, and that’s why they have such a large presence across entertainment and culture, where fans have such a connection to brands and artists.

That framing matters for how success is measured. A placement that generates 50 million impressions but no emotional response has delivered reach - but not impact. What Coca-Cola is after, and what the Beetlejuice campaign demonstrated, is the kind of deep fan engagement that turns a product into a collectible, and a passive viewer into an active participant.

→ Remember: How you measure success matters. Impressions and CPM are important, but the brands extracting the most value from film partnerships are tracking fan participation, secondary market activity, UGC volume, and sentiment.

As filmmaking budgets shrink and attention spans shorten, authentic brand integration opportunities across multiple media platforms are not only attractive opportunities but also useful funding models. The more successful integrations there are, the more the gap between brands that approach this transactionally and those that approach it creatively will widen.

Coca-Cola's work across Beetlejuice Beetlejuice and The Devil Wears Prada 2 offers a model in-line with the latter. Long lead times. Consumer-first brand matching. Creative co-ownership with filmmakers. Campaigns that extend the film's world rather than interrupting it. And a clear understanding of what they're actually there to achieve: engagement and fandom, not just eyeballs.

Working on anything cool, or have a press release you would like us to cover? Send it in for the chance for it to be covered in next week’s edition!

That’s all for now, everyone - thanks again for reading the latest edition of The SEG3 Report. If you found it of interest, please do consider sharing with a colleague or friend who’d enjoy it too!