William Backer, a major figure in American advertising and a principal creator of one of the most indelible of all commercials, the 1971 TV spot in which a vast and fresh-faced youth chorus sings with guileless enthusiasm, “
I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke,” died May 13 at a hospital in Warrenton, Va. He was 89.
The Piedmont Environmental Council, a Warrenton-based conservation group where Mr. Backer had been president since 2004, announced the death. His wife, Ann Mudge Backer, said the cause was complications from colon cancer surgery.
For all his other successes, few commercials made for radio or television seemed to tug at the heartstrings more than the Coca-Cola advertisements Mr. Backer helped bring forth in 1971. The work simultaneously produced a sense of international goodwill — the singing youth are on a hilltop, dressed in their indigenous clothing styles and holding Coke bottles — and a recognition of the soft drink’s global penetration.
The commercial gained renewed attention last year when it was used in the
finale of “Mad Men,” the acclaimed AMC cable series set in the 1960s advertising world. As the last episode closed, the Coke advertisement came as a brainstorm to the principal figure, Don Draper (Jon Hamm), as he sat meditating at a California spiritual retreat.
