Is there a more iconic brand than Coca-Cola? The logo and the contour bottle are among the most recognizable images out there. Disney, Ford, McDonald's, and Google come to mind, but in my opinion, Coke is at the top. I've always loved the Coca-Cola brand. I don't drink as much Coke as I used to, but I do enjoy an ice cold Coke from time to time. I have several Coca-Cola t-shirts that I wear often, and even have a small collection of older glass Coke bottles that I found interesting. A really cool marketing campaign that Coke released in 2014 is back again this year, the Share A Coke campaign. Coke added names to their labels on regular plastic bottles sold in stores. It was very popular and award winning. In addition to the standard bottles in stores, fans of the product could go to shareacoke.com and have names printed on the label of glass 8 oz. bottles. I had to incorporate the Dukes into the fun.
I originally tried to make these bottles when I first became away of the possibility a few years ago. There is a screening process and Coke doesn't really tell you the guidelines. Copyrighted material or offensive wording probably get flagged. When I first ordered, Cooter wasn't an allowed name and I didn't want to make everyone but our favorite mechanic so I put it on hold and sort of forgot about it. While organizing items at the new museum at Cooter's in the Valley in Luray, VA (Grand Opening 05/06/2017!) there was a Coke box with custom bottles inside and one was "Cooter Davenport." I asked Alma if she used her clout, she has clout all over the world, to get this bottle printed and she said she had nothing to do with it, it was a gift created by a fan. I figured, maybe they let up on the requirements this time around. And then I sort of forgot about it again.
This week I was at Sam's Club and noticed a case of plastic Coke bottles had names printed on it. Last summer Coke changed it up and went with song lyrics which was nice, but wasn't as much fun as the names. I went online to make sure that wasn't an old case of bottles at the discount giant and read about Coke bringing the campaign back this summer and got all excited about it again. I returned to shareacoke.com once more with the thought that maybe the trick to getting Cooter through the process was adding his last name, Davenport. I made an order with all the characters last names and it went through! Until it didn't; about an hour later I got a cancellation notice. Coke didn't like Cooter Davenport or Cletus Hogg. Weird that only those two were flagged. I decided to try one more time, and this time I got through! No last names, except one, and I even got our mechanic through! First off is General Lee. This was a last minute addition and I really thought it was going to get flagged. Nope. I got it! Man, does it look good. Very iconic.
Next up are the Duke Boys! I didn't really want to include the last names and I'm glad it didn't work out doing that. Adding too many letters makes the font a little smaller and in my opinion the bigger the name, the better. The Coke Dukes Boys Bottles look great!
Maybe I just flew under the radar, or the flagger wasn't paying attention, but I got by the censors using "Crazy Cooter." "Cooter" and "Cooter Davenport" didn't work (for me) but I think adding "Crazy" works out just fine. Crazy Coca-Cola comin' at ya!
I do believe there are plastic versions of the standard bottles sold in stores with Daisy, Bo, and Luke out there. I know I've seen Luke. I considered chasing those, but haven't decided yet. The glass bottle of Daisy sure is perfect.
One of the reasons I like not using the full character names is because "Uncle Jesse Duke" doesn't sound as good. "Jesse Duke" isn't right either. I'm glad I was able to just use Uncle Jesse.
Surely these flew under the radar because Boss Hogg would have been flagged for copyright usage, right? I'm not complaining. This might be my favorite in the collection. I'm sure ol' Boss would love enjoying this Coke with some pickled pigs feet.
I debated on whether to just have "Rosco" on his bottle, but this is the one instance I went with the full name. The font is quite small, but I think I made the right decision. I love it, I love it.
Unlike Mego, I included both deputies. I considered making them "Deputy Enos" and "Deputy Cletus" but they were never really referred to that way on the show. Their first names were used most of the time, along with "Dipstick." Possum on a gumbush, these look great.
Now you know, in my mind, I'm the third Duke Boy.
I actually made the Larry bottle way back when the promotion started and I tried to make the Dukes. I had to get it out for these pictures. I made a Natalie bottle too. The first year of this promotion, we found a plastic Natalie bottle at the beach and started looking for Larry. We went to every gas station, pharmacy, and grocery store in Ocean City looking for Larry, but never found one. When I got home, I stopped everywhere to find my name on a Coke. I found three different variations of my sister's name, Kate, Katie, and Katherine, my cousin's name, Lara, who was named after my grandfather, Larry the first, I found my mom, Renee, Chad, Jeff & Jeffrey, and just about everyone else I knew. But no Larry. At the end of that first summer, I had to resort to ebay for my plastic Larry bottle. At least it was out there somewhere. I have them in both plastic and glass now.
My collection of Dukes of Hazzard themed #shareacoke bottles sure is awesome. This summer the twist to the campaign is that Coke is also releasing bottles with last names on them. They haven't released a list of available names, but said they focused on about 200 popular last names and gave examples such as Miller, Smith, Lopez, and Davis. I kind of doubt Franks is on that list, but you never know. Duke might very well be available and if I do see one, I'm probably going to try to get as many Dukes names as I can. Am I a little crazy? Yup.
