I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing (in Perfect Harmony) - TV Commercial

TV Commercial

The song first aired on American radio on February 12, 1971, but failed. Although many radio stations refused to play it, Backer persuaded McCann-Erickson to film a commercial using the song. The TV commercial, entitled "Hilltop", was directed by Roberto Malenotti. The first attempt at shooting was ruined by rain and other location problems. The eventual total cost of the commercial was $250,000—an unheard of price in 1971 for an advertisement. The finished product, first aired in July 1971, featured a multicultural group of young people lip syncing the song on a hill outside Rome, Italy. The global unity of the singers is emphasized by showing that the bottles of Coke they are holding are labelled in a variety of languages. It became so popular that it was recorded by The New Seekers and by The Hillside Singers as a full-length song and became a hit.

In the mid-1970s, another version of the commercial was filmed for the holiday season. This reworking featured the same song, but showed the group at night, with each person holding a lit white candle. In the final zoom-out crane shot, only the candle flames remain visible, forming a triangle reminiscent of a Christmas tree; this impression is cemented by a Coke-bottle logo superimposed at the top of the "tree", and the words "Happy Holidays from your Coca-Cola bottler" below. This version was reused for many years during the holiday season.

In 1990, a follow-up to this commercial, called "Hilltop Reunion" and directed by Jeff Lovinger, aired during coverage of Super Bowl XXIV. It featured the original singers (now adults) and their children, and culminated in a medley of this song and the then-current "Can't Beat the Real Thing" jingle.

In 2006, the song was used again in a Coca-Cola commercial in the Netherlands.

In 2007, Campaign magazine called it "one of the best-loved and most influential ads in TV history". It served as a milestone—the first instance of the recording industry's involvement with advertising. Marketing analysts have noted Coca-Cola's strategy of marrying the idea of happiness and universal love of the product illustrated by the song.

In 2010, Coca-Cola once again used the song in a television commercial featuring the entire line of its sponsored NASCAR Sprint Cup drivers. The commercial included the drivers singing the song while driving in a race. The following year, information on how many dollars it would take "to buy the world a Coke" was given in a commercial featuring the red silhouette of a Coke bottle and the melody of the song.