By the late 1970s, Coca-Cola’s advertising agency, McCann Erickson, was under pressure. The brand’s cheerful jingles were starting to feel stale, and the company wanted something new for its “Have a Coke and a Smile” campaign. One of the ideas on the table was a short story about a scowling football star and a timid little boy.
The ad in 60 seconds
After getting hurt in a game, Pittsburgh Steelers defensive lineman “Mean” Joe Greene limps alone down the tunnel toward the locker room. A young boy, played by Tommy Okon, follows him and nervously offers help, then his bottle of Coke. Greene waves him off, then relents and drinks the whole bottle while the boy turns sadly away.
“Hey, kid,” Greene calls. “Catch.” He tosses the boy his game jersey, and the boy’s face lights up.
That’s it: almost no dialogue, one product moment and a small reversal of character. Writer Penny Hawkey later said the team expected sports fans to like it, but the general public, and mothers in particular, responded most.
Making it
The commercial was filmed in May 1979 at a small high school stadium in Mount Vernon, New York, whose tunnels looked nothing like an NFL venue. Shooting ran long. Neither Greene nor his starstruck 9-year-old co-star could consistently deliver their lines, and Okon later joked that the shoot, which ran until 2 or 3 in the morning, probably broke child labor laws.
Debut and Super Bowl fame
“Hey Kid, Catch!” first aired on October 1, 1979. It was well liked from the start, but it became a sensation a few months later when Coca-Cola ran it during Super Bowl XIV in January 1980. By coincidence, Greene’s Steelers were playing in that game, and they beat the Los Angeles Rams 31 to 19.
The 60-second spot won a Clio Award as one of the best television commercials of 1979.
Why it worked
- It flipped a reputation. Greene’s nickname was “Mean” for a reason. Seeing the toughest man on the field soften for a child was the whole emotional payoff.
- It told a story, not a pitch. The Coke is the turning point of the plot, not a product shot bolted onto the end.
- It trusted silence. With only a few lines of dialogue, the ad relied on faces and timing, which is why it still works today.
- It had perfect timing. Airing during a Super Bowl his own team was playing in made Greene the most talked-about man in the country.
Legacy
The ad spawned a made-for-TV movie, “The Steeler and the Pittsburgh Kid,” which aired on NBC on November 15, 1981. It has been parodied by Sesame Street, Newhart, Family Guy and even Pepsi. Coca-Cola remade it for the 2009 Super Bowl to promote Coke Zero, with Steelers safety Troy Polamalu in Greene’s role, and Greene himself parodied it in a 2012 fabric softener ad.
In 2016, Greene and Okon, by then an adult, reunited for a CBS special on the greatest Super Bowl commercials. “Hey Kid, Catch!” regularly appears on those lists, and it helped establish the Super Bowl as the place where brands tell stories rather than just sell products.