Never one to shy away from a feel-good moment, Coke Zero wanted to help people around the world by making their tacky holiday sweater dreams come true. It’s an admirable cause. So, together with our comrades at Droga5, we set out to create a microsite that would allow users to digitally design a unique sweater and then upload it to social media for praise… or ridicule. The contest would result in 100 winners, who would actually get their designs custom-woven into a wearable gift, wrapped and sent to them. All within two weeks of the contest’s end and just in time to impress at the holiday parties.

Who’s gonna say no to that?

Over the duration of two and half weeks after Thanksgiving, 82,200 custom designed sweaters went head to head in the holiday battle of the century.  This sweater royale saw participation from 90% of the world’s countries and exactly 405,261 votes cast on the top 100 sweaters, enshrining them in the first ever Sweater Hall of Fame.

We started by partnering with Stoll America in New York City’s garment district. Then crafted the sweater pattern templates, schooled ourselves on how yarn gauge correlates to a pixel and special-ordered wool directly from Italy. Working around the clock we manufactured every custom sweater with specialized packaging, then shipped each to the eager hands of their creators.