• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, March 12, 2012

Google's ad Project Re:Brief took four iconic television commercials from the 1960s and 1970s, contacted the original ad executives behind the ads, and brought them to New York to help them re-imagine them for the digital Web. The ads included Coca-Cola, Volvo, Alka-Seltzer and Avis.

The television ads that made history appear to connect one person with another. They bring out the human part of the products.

Harvey Gabor in 1971 helped create Hilltop, the Coca-Cola commercial that taught the world to sing about its product as the "real thing." He said the song "matched the personality with the brand."

Through technology, the re-imagined ad allows the viewer to send a free Coca-Cola across the world and share a little happiness with someone never met. The interactive ad asks the viewer to choose a destination such as Hollywood or Google headquarters, add a message, and send the product.

The user can record a video or text message to send with the Coke. The messages goes through an automated and manual moderation process, and serves up in a vending machine queue waiting for a customer to interact with it. The person at the vending machine interacts with the message and receives a dispensed Coke. The recipient can record a video or send a text reply.

Amil Gargano created the Volvo ad -- Drive it like you hate it -- to create a personality for the car company. "If you can make yourself happy, there's a good chance you can make others happy," he said. "If you're cynical enough to believe that you're not convinced about what you're doing, but think you can convince someone else, you're dead."

The re-imagined Volvo ad takes a road trip in a Volvo nearly 3 million miles. Irv Gordon bought a Volvo in 1966 at age 26. Gordon would rather drive than fly, so he takes along Google's cameras and crew to experience life.

Google built a GPS data feed into Google Maps. While the movies that tell the story of his journey will end, viewers can still continue the trip in real-time and watch as his odometer puts on the miles.