Text reading 'xlr8 alcoholic cola outdoor' on a black background with a red and white color scheme.

For those who are too young to know what xlr8 was all about, it was a ready to drink alcoholic cola with caffeine and guarana. Hence the name. Bound to get you buzzing. A world first of multi-packaging labels that became the ad campaign - outdoor, street posters, magazine spreads. And the labels were wrap around. The concept was to show contemporary imagery that depicted an increase in your heartbeat. It was a contradiction back then: an alcoholic beverage that had sugar, caffeine and guarana. Too many and your heart beat did increase.
Nowadays, Redbull, Monster and V lead in the non-alcoholic beverage.
xlr8 had to show this through contemporary, lateral imagery: fear, desire, excitement, voyeurism. So campaignable. 24 labels were produced in all. The category, let alone the packaging industry, hadn’t seen anything quite like it.

Eight bottles of XLR8 soda with colorful, varied labels featuring abstract and graphic designs.
X-ray image of two skulls facing each other with a fishing pole and hook, the logo 'XLR8' in the top right corner, and the phrase 'ALCOHOLIC COLA' in red text in the bottom left corner.

The kiss

Kissing someone would definitely increases your heart beat. But the laws of alcoholic advertising don’t permit showing or inferring sexual success. Fair enough. 

The concept of having 2 heads facing one another, but x-rayed was to disguise this fact. But how to know they’re kissing? With piercings. And they were 100% real. Nose rings. Tongue pins. 

This made billboard of the year. 

A large billboard on a brick building shows an animal skull with headphones and the words 'Alcoholic Cola' below. A seagull is flying in the sky, and part of a motorcycle is visible in the foreground.

French poodle

Now I love the French. Might even retire in France one day. But wasn’t happy when they were bombing the Pacific with nuclear tests. So to have a dig at them, we had a cute French poodle on one side of a corner. And 3 menacing Dobermans on the other. 

All in shot. A strategically placed poster for a protest march coming up was all it needed. And some mince meat for the Dobermans. The other prop which wasn’t needed was the initial mock-up of this idea. You can see a bottle on the floor near the poodle.

Each set of 8 labels had one corner concept. Literally 2 opposing things coming to meet is a campaign in itself. 

A white dog and three black dogs on a city sidewalk, with a white building and street in the background. Text on the image includes 'ALCOHOLIC COLA' and logos for 'XLKR8'.
A street scene with two women standing outside a building. One is wearing a white coat, leopard print skirt, and sunglasses, holding a handbag. The other, a young girl, is wearing a white T-shirt with a graphic, ripped jeans, and carrying a backpack.

Anti fur

The second in the corner series.  An absolutely fabulous fur-laden lady just about to bump into an animal activist, (my wife René ) with a live ferret in hand. The ferret got paid more than my wife.