Coca-Cola skysurfing advertisement

In 1991, Coca-Cola made advertising history with its first Australian-created commercial to air worldwide. The ad’s premise was simple but outrageous: a man is so thirsty for a Coke that he jumps out of a plane to get it. Filmed over Broken Hill, NSW, the skysurfing stunt was no gimmick – the Australian Skydiving Team performed 300 jumps to nail the free-fall surfing manoeuvre. 

The campaign was created by ad agency McCann Erickson. It worked by tapping into the early-’90s craze for extreme sports, pairing Coke’s thirst-quenching promise with adrenaline-fuelled visuals. Its bold concept and quintessentially Australian backdrop helped the ad go global, screening across the US, Europe, South America and Asia. Today, it’s a time capsule of ’90s fashion, high-concept advertising and the extreme lengths Coke went to in its cola war with Pepsi.