"I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing (In Perfect Harmony)" | |
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Single by The Hillside Singers | |
from the album I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing | |
B-side | "I Believed It All" |
Released | November 1971 |
Length | 2:15 |
Label | Metromedia |
Songwriter(s) | |
Producer(s) | Al Ham |
"I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing" | ||||
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Single by The New Seekers | ||||
from the album We'd Like to Teach the World to Sing | ||||
B-side | "Boom Town" | |||
Released | November 1971 | |||
Genre | Pop [1] [2] | |||
Length | 2:20 | |||
Label | Philips (Germany) Polydor (UK) Elektra (USA/Canada) | |||
Songwriter(s) | Roger Cook, Roger Greenaway, Bill Backer and Billy Davis | |||
Producer(s) | David Mackay | |||
The New Seekers singles chronology | ||||
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"I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing (In Perfect Harmony)" is a pop song (originally known as "True Love and Apple Pie") by British hit songwriters Roger Cook and Roger Greenaway, and sung by Susan Shirley. [3]
The lyrics were rewritten by the songwriters—together with US advertising executive Bill Backer and US songwriter Billy Davis—as a jingle for The Coca-Cola Company's advertising agency, McCann Erickson, to become "Buy the World a Coke" in the 1971 "Hilltop" television commercial for Coca-Cola and sung by the Hillside Singers. [4] "Buy the World a Coke" was produced by Billy Davis and portrayed a positive message of hope and love, featuring a multicultural collection of teenagers on top of a hill appearing to sing the song.
The popularity of the jingle led to its being re-recorded in two versions: one by The New Seekers and another by The Hillside Singers (as a full-length song) that dropped references to Coca-Cola. The song became a hit record in the US and the UK.
The idea originally came to Bill Backer, an advertising executive working for McCann Erickson, the agency responsible for Coca-Cola. Backer, Roger Cook and Billy Davis were delayed at Shannon Airport in Ireland. After a forced layover with many hot tempers, they noticed their fellow travelers the next morning were talking and joking while drinking Coca-Cola. Backer wrote the line "I'd like to buy the world a Coke" on a napkin and shared it with Cook and Roger Greenaway.
The melody was derived from a previous song by Cook and Greenaway, originally called "True Love and Apple Pie," that was recorded in 1971 by Susan Shirley. [3] Cook, Greenaway, Backer and Billy Davis reworked the song into a Coca-Cola radio jingle, which was performed by British pop group The New Seekers and recorded at Trident Studios in London. The radio jingle made its debut in February 1971 before being adapted for the Coca-Cola "Hilltop" television commercial later that year.
The commercial ended with the statement:
On a hilltop in Italy,
We assembled young people
From all over the world...
To bring you this message
From Coca-Cola Bottlers
All over the world.
It's the real thing. Coke.
The song became so popular that its creators revised it, adding three verses and removing product references to create a full-length song appropriate for commercial release. The full-length song was re-recorded by both The Hillside Singers and The New Seekers and both versions became huge hits. [5]
"Buy the World a Coke" contains the line "I'd like to buy the world a Coke" and repeats "It's the real thing", which was Coca-Cola's marketing slogan. The Coca-Cola Company introduced that slogan in October 1969.
Several versions of the ad have been made.
In 2007, Campaign magazine called it "one of the best-loved and most influential ads in TV history". [18] It served as a milestone—the first instance of the recording industry's involvement with advertising. [19]
Marketing analysts have noted Coca-Cola's strategy of marrying the idea of happiness and universal love of the product illustrated by the song. [20] [21]
The commercial has continued receiving accolades; in 2000, Channel 4 and The Sunday Times ranked the song 16th in the 100 Greatest TV Ads while in 2005, ITV ranked the advertisement 10th in its list of the greatest advertisements. [22] [23]
After the TV commercial aired, radio stations began to get calls from people who liked it. Billy Davis' friends in radio suggested he record the song, but not as an advertising jingle. [8] It became so popular that the song was rewritten without brand name references and expanded to three verses. Davis recruited a group of studio singers to take it on because The New Seekers did not have time to record it. The studio group named themselves The Hillside Singers to identify with the ad, and within two weeks the song was on the national charts. The Hillside Singers' version reached #13 on the Billboard Hot 100, #5 on Billboard's Easy Listening chart and #58 on the RPM charts in Canada. [24] Billboard ranked this version as the No. 97 song for 1972.
The New Seekers later recorded the song [3] and sold 96,000 copies of their record in one day, eventually selling 12 million total. "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing (In Perfect Harmony)" climbed to #1 in the UK, #3 in Canada and #7 in the US in 1971 and 1972. The song became a gold record in the US and has also sold over a million copies in the UK. [25] The Coca-Cola Company waived royalties to the song and instead donated $80,000 in payments to UNICEF. [3] Billboard ranked this version as the No. 93 song for 1972.
Weekly charts | Year-end charts |
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Region | Certification | Certified units/sales |
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United States (RIAA) [54] | Gold | 1,000,000^ |
^ Shipments figures based on certification alone. |
The commercial was used as the final scene (minus the "It's the real thing" statement at the end) in the Mad Men series finale "Person to Person", which was set in November 1970 at an oceanside spiritual retreat in California. It is implied that the show's fictional protagonist, Don Draper, was behind the commercial's creation. [60]
A version of the song was used in the trailer for the Netflix series Resident Evil (adapted from the video game series of the same name). [61] [ importance? ]
The song was also featured in The Golden Girls episode "Vacation".
Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a cola soft drink manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company. In 2013, Coke products were sold in over 200 countries worldwide, with consumers drinking more than 1.8 billion company beverage servings each day. Coca-Cola ranked No. 94 in the 2024 Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by total revenue. Based on Interbrand's "best global brand" study of 2023, Coca-Cola was the world's sixth most valuable brand.
The New Seekers were a British pop group, formed in London in 1969 by Keith Potger after the break-up of his group, the Seekers. The idea was that the New Seekers would appeal to the same market as the original Seekers, but their music would have pop as well as folk influences. They achieved worldwide success in the early 1970s with hits including "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing", "You Won't Find Another Fool Like Me" and "Beg, Steal or Borrow."
Roquel "Billy" Davis, of Detroit, was an American songwriter, record producer, and singer. Davis was also known as a writer/producer of commercial jingles, mostly for Coca-Cola. He was also known as Tyran Carlo on writing credits.
Roger Frederick Cook is an English singer, songwriter and record producer, who has written many hit records for other recording artists. He has also had a successful recording career in his own right.
Roger John Reginald Greenaway is an English singer, songwriter and record producer, best known for his collaborations with Roger Cook and Tony Burrows. His compositions have included "You've Got Your Troubles" and the transatlantic million selling songs "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing " and "Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress". They were the first UK songwriting partnership to be granted an Ivor Novello Award as 'Songwriters of the Year' in two successive years.
"Here Comes the King" is a well-known advertising jingle written for Budweiser, whose slogan is "The King of Beers." Budweiser is the flagship brand of the Anheuser-Busch brewery.
"Country Sunshine" is a song co-written and recorded by American country music artist Dottie West. It was both a Coca-Cola ad jingle and a single. The song was co-written by West, along with Billy Davis and Dianne Whiles. Its popularity as a commercial jingle led to its single release by RCA Victor in 1973. The single became among West's commercially-successful releases, reaching the top ten of the US and Canadian country charts. It also made positions on other genre charts in both countries. "Country Sunshine" has since been considered among West's most well-known recordings.
The Hillside Singers were an American folk group. The ensemble was created by advertising agency McCann Erickson to sing in a television commercial. McCann Erickson had written the jingle "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing " for Coca-Cola, and had sought to have The New Seekers sing it, but that group could not fit the project into their schedule and turned it down. McCann Erickson then got in touch with producer Al Ham, who put together a group of singers for the project. The commercial began airing in July 1971 and was extremely popular, convincing Ham to rewrite the song as "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing" and to record an album and a Christmas record. The single hit No. 13 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, No. 5 on the Adult Contemporary chart, and No. 58 in Canada, which convinced The New Seekers to issue it as a single as well. The Hillside Singers version of the song sold a million copies, earning a gold certification from the Recording Industry Association of America.
The Pepsi Generation, is the theme of an advertising campaign for Pepsi-Cola, a US brand of soft drink, that launched in 1963 as the result of a slogan contest. A new car was awarded to the writer of the winning slogan. The contest was the brainchild of Alan Pottasch, a PepsiCo advertising executive, and it was won by Appleton, Wisconsin resident, Ellen M. Reimer. Her slogan invited consumers to "Come Alive! You're the Pepsi Generation!" The original "Come Alive" jingle was performed by singer Joanie Sommers in her memorable "breathy" vocal style. As of 2024, this logo is still used on merchandising.
Open Happiness was a global marketing campaign for The Coca-Cola Company that was rolled out worldwide in the first half of 2009, following the company's "Coke Side of Life" advertising campaign. It was developed by the Wieden + Kennedy creative agency.
We'd Like to Teach the World to Sing is the name given to two albums by UK pop group The New Seekers. The first of these, released in late 1971, was a repackaging of their previous album New Colours and was released in the US. The second version of the album was released in the UK and Europe in 1972 with a new line-up of tracks. Both albums however contained the song "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing ".
McCann, formerly McCann Erickson, is an American global advertising agency network, with offices in 120 countries. McCann is part of McCann Worldgroup, along with several other agencies, including direct digital marketing agency MRM//McCann, experiential marketing agency Momentum Worldwide, healthcare marketing group McCann Health, and public-relations and strategic-communications agency Weber Shandwick.
Linda Ellen November is an American singer who has sung tens of thousands of commercial jingles. She was the voice of the singing cat in the Meow Mix commercials, sang the jingle "Galaxy Glue" in the 1981 film The Incredible Shrinking Woman, the "Coke and a Smile" jingle in the classic Mean Joe Greene Super Bowl commercial, and has won many Clio Awards for her work on television and radio.
Ullanda McCullough is an American pop music singer most noted as a backing vocalist.
TeeVee Toons: The Commercials is a 1989 compilation album of television advertising jingles and commercials released as a spinoff to the Television's Greatest Hits series created by the record label Tee-Vee Toons, later known as TVT Records.
"Hey Kid, Catch!" is a television commercial for Coca-Cola starring Pittsburgh Steelers defensive tackle "Mean" Joe Greene. The commercial debuted on October 1, 1979, and was re-aired multiple times, most notably during Super Bowl XIV in 1980. The 60-second commercial won a Clio Award for being one of the best television commercials of 1979.
"Country Girl" is a song co-written and recorded by the American country music artist Dottie West. It was released in March 1968 as the first single and title track from the album Country Girl. The song peaked at number 15 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart. In addition, "Country Girl" was West's first song to enter the Canadian RPM Country chart, reaching a peak of number 5. West wrote the song with Red Lane.
"Person to Person" is the series finale of the American drama television series Mad Men. It is the fourteenth episode of the seventh season and the 92nd episode overall. The episode was written and directed by series creator Matthew Weiner, and originally aired on AMC on May 17, 2015. The finale was well received, received critical acclaim and in the years following its airing, it has been cited as one of the greatest television finales ever made. Jon Hamm and John Slattery would subsequently reprise their roles as Don Draper and Roger Sterling in cameo roles in the 2024 comedy film Unfrosted. Rich Sommer would also reprise his role as Harry Crane in a background role in the 2018 biographical Netflix comedy film A Futile and Stupid Gesture.
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