Fight Delight in Coca-Cola’s March Madness Ad

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Coca-Cola’s decade-plus partnership with the NCAA really comes to life during tournament season, and as you’d expect they have a spot for March Madness which puts a distinctively Coke spin on fandom.

With agency VML taking the creative lead, “Fight Song” debuted last year as a Coke Zero ad, and this year it gets a refurb to spotlight the brand’s original taste Coca-Cola. But the ad itself is consistent, and so is its tagline – “Fan Work Is Thirsty Work” – which Coke has been using since 2024 to promote its NCAA tie-ups.

That line sums up the ad’s concept. Fans may not put in the sweat the players do on the court, but the songs, chants, drumming and dancing they support their team with is real effort nonetheless. And it deserves a refreshing reward. In the ad we see a mosaic of NCAA team fan groups singing and celebrating, cheering their team on with the fight songs they’ve practised. And when they’ve sung their team to a win? Time for a Coca-Cola, of course.

With a small tournament window to air the ad, it’s the short-term metrics on Test Your Ad we should look at to measure the its success. And in short-term Spike Rating and also Brand Fluency (our quick and accurate recognition score) “Fight Song” gets our top, ‘Exceptional’ rating. Soft drinks are a strong, emotive category but this ad clears the category norms by a long way.

The ad also gets a strong, 4.3-Star Rating on our primary long-term measure (the category average here is only 2.6-Stars). That helps understand why Coke brought the spot back into circulation with this year’s new edit. “Fight Song” is an ad which can do the job it’s designed to – spiking sales during March Madness – but is also doing the work of driving long-term brand growth. By reusing it Coke is also tapping into the power of creative consistency. As our Creative Dividend work shows, reusing and reinforcing successful assets over time is the best way for a brand to multiply the business impact and profit generated by ads.

So why does “Fight Song” work so well? The key is the ad’s upbeat, positive tone – it shows excitement and joy, which means it creates excitement and joy in return. The spot focuses on organised groups of fans, not on single fans, so it creates a sense of togetherness and human communication. And because fight songs are a cultural tradition, it’ll spark nostalgia in anyone who supported a team in their own college days. It’s the perfect mix of excitement and nostalgia, and a campaign that’s a proven year-on-year success.