If you’ve been watching television lately, you undoubtedly have spent a few sleepless nights pondering the question: “Where is Coca-Cola, Texas?”
At least a small part can be found in the “M” Streets of East Dallas with neighborhood resident and model Jenny Bernet, who can be seen during one of the ubiquitous television commercials driving a Jeep along an empty country road, yukking it up with other Texans (including actor Lou Diamond Phillips) and, in general, having a great time in the mythical Texas town.
“The Coke commercial took two full days of shooting, and you see me just a matter of a few seconds,” says Bernet, who is featured in a solo spot guzzling a Coke to close the 30-second commercial.
“I don’t even drink Coke in the first place, and I had to drink so much Coke during the shot (it was filmed 10 or 12 times, she says), that they finally had to put water in the bottle so I could keep drinking more and more. I was all fizzed out.”
Bernet most often is found on the pages of fashion catalogs for Harold’s, Neiman-Marcus and other clothing retailers. She’s also a mainstay of fashion circulars for national retailers such as Sears, Montgomery Ward, Target and Kmart distributed as inserts in Sunday newspapers throughout the country.
Bernet, 25, is a Highland Park High School and University of Texas at Austin graduate who began modeling five years ago. She and her husband moved to their “M” Street home about 18 months ago.
Late hours, long days and an irregular work schedule are drawbacks to the modeling profession, Bernet says. But she’s not complaining – last month, she flew to Denver and Hawaii to model the Chanel fashion line in runway shows, and she recently turned down an opportunity to audition for a Dr Pepper soft drink commercial.
“I couldn’t do it because I’m still getting residuals from Coke every time that commercial airs,” says Bernet, who also receives a “very small” royalty payment each time the commercial is aired.
The most frequently asked question of a model, Bernet says, is: “Do you get to keep the clothes you’re modeling?”
Her answer: “Not unless it’s a tradeout, where they take the money for the clothes out of your pay. And that’s not really ideal.”
Here are a few of Bernet’s observations from the Coke commercial:
• Most of the commercial was shot at a remote stretch of south Austin and in Dripping Springs. Night shots were filmed at Barton Creek Square.
• Television commercials require a “specially made Coke can that is ‘redder’ than usual to show up better on TV,” Bernet says. “People were constantly spraying the bottles and cans with a water mist to make them perspire and look good.”
• Phillips, a young actor perhaps best known as one of the “Young Guns” in the movie of the same name, actually appears in the commercial less than Bernet. “He showed up in a big white limousine, got out, drank his Coke, and left,” she says.
• “It looks like we were shooting the commercial during the summer and having all of this fun, but we weren’t. It was freezing cold (40-50 degrees during the March filming), and we had a heater blasting everywhere the whole time.”
• How was she selected for the commercial? “I went to an audition, and they asked us questions like: ‘Where is Coca-Cola, Texas?’ They wanted to see how quick we were, I guess, how we smiled, just how we looked.”
And how did Bernet, who models through the Kim Dawson agency in Dallas, qualify for the sought-after, Coke-drinking finale of the commercial, during which she takes four or five gulps of the soft drink?
“About two hours before we finished, they pulled all of the models over and said: ‘Here, drink this.’ I guess they wanted to see who’s Adam’s apple moved the best. That’s when I was selected.
“The funny thing is that during that drinking audition, I was drinking an Orange Crush.”
