Coke launches ‘dream-flavored’ soda

The launch is this year’s fourth and final release from the brand’s global innovation arm dubbed Coca-Cola Creations.

Coke’s description of its new flavor makes it sound like it is trying to capture the essence of a Dali painting, mixed with the experience of a month-long meditation retreat. Dreamland “bottles up the technicolor tastes and surrealism of the subconscious,” the brand said in a press release, and “adds playfully vibrant flavor notes that evoke the boundless creativity of the human imagination to the unmistakable taste of Coca-Cola.”

With language like that, one suspects that Coke is trying to capitalize on the increasingly mainstream status of psychedelics. They wouldn’t be the only ones: a product called ‘Psychedelic Water’ – which, despite being totally non-psychedelic, describes itself as being “the first legal psychedelic consumer product of its kind” – hit shelves last year and recently entered into a retail partnership with Urban Outfitters.

“Coca-Cola Dreamworld taps into gen Z’s passion for the infinite potential of the mind by exploring what a dream tastes like,” Alessandra Cascino, Coca-Cola North America Operating Unit’s creative and shopper program director, said in a statement. “Like the Coca-Cola Creations that came before it, Dreamworld plays with the unexpected and will no doubt provoke discovery and debate among consumers ... which we welcome.”

Coke has decorated the packaging of its new products – which include a sugar-free option – with “an illusionary visual landscape,” designed to be a visual representation of Dreamworld’s flavor. There are disco balls, floating cubes and ladders leading into interdimensional portals – the kind of typical, quasi-psychedelic artwork that you’d expect to see in a Coachella ad.

The new product launch also comes with an augmented reality (AR) component, suggesting that Coke is continuing to invest in the metaverse. Coke said that Dreamworld product packaging can be scanned to access an AR experience launched in collaboration with Tomorrowland, a popular EDM festival.

The launch of Dreamworld follows three similar activations from Coca-Cola Creations, all of which have been aimed at garnering appeal among a younger audience and establishing the beverage giant as a tech-savvy and youthful brand. In June, the brand’s global innovation arm launched a collaborative product with the EDM artist Marshmello; earlier this year, it unveiled Byte and Starlight, which were marketed as containing the flavors of pixels and outer space, respectively.

Dreamworld is slated to become available in the US beginning on Monday August 15.

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