The New Faces of Coke

https://medium.com/the-death-of-the-sugar-industry/the-new-faces-of-coke-62314047160f

by newtonapple • 11 years ago

40 30 11 years ago

One cannot help but wonder if the Soda industry is/will become the Tobacco industry of 50 years ago.

prsimp• 11 years ago

While not limited to the Soda industry, this sentiment is expressed pretty vividly (even comparing testimony, marketing etc.) in the documentary Fed Up[1]. Worth a watch if this sort of thing is interesting to you and currently available on Netflix.

[1] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2381335/

ecdavis• 11 years ago

[...] making herself available as an expert for news outlets. If a story says something negative about artificial sweeteners, Flipse said she might contact the PR agency and ask, “Do you want me to do something about that?”

What does "do something" mean? That statement reads like a fairly blatant request for a bribe.

joe5150• 11 years ago

"When you’re watching your favorite Food Network show and Coca-Cola is used as an ingredient, do you know that Coke is paying the chef? It never occurred to me."

Why wouldn't it occur to someone that a brand-name product used on television has been paid for? Especially when every other product used has been conspicuously genericized, labels covered up and whatnot.

Also Coca-Cola as a glaze for food doesn't strike me as particularly better or worse than using barbecue sauce or ketchup or anything of the other sugary things we eat every day.

batbomb• 11 years ago

The striking thing is this:

    virginia willis and 9 others recommended

The author actually misspelled the name in the article (it's Willis, not Wills, as it appears in the article)

Also, Coke has been around as an ingredient for a long time in BBQ because BBQ sauce has to have... sugar.

snappy173• 11 years ago

"Also, Coke has been around as an ingredient for a long time in BBQ because BBQ sauce has to have... sugar."

and acidity. it's kind of perfect.

ssharp• 11 years ago

"Why wouldn't it occur to someone that a brand-name product used on television has been paid for? Especially when every other product used has been conspicuously genericized, labels covered up and whatnot."

You're correct on labels but there isn't really a generic version of Coke that tastes the same. It's not unreasonable to think a professional chef would specifically want Coke over another cola.

jobu• 11 years ago

There definitely are some shady endorsements happening here, but I really don't see a problem with this one:

“Sometimes only the real thing will do when it comes to soda, so I am a big fan of the new Coke mini can! It is real soda classic, but it’s in a cute portion-controlled can that keeps my bubbly treat to only 90 calories!” - Sarah Bedwell

I would argue that this is actually the kind of endorsement we should be encouraging. It re-frames a soda as a treat that should be consumed in moderation instead of guzzled from a supersized bucket. Ice cream is worse than soda, but it doesn't get nearly the negative attention because everyone knows it's an unhealthy treat.

CyberDildonics• 11 years ago

The thing is that isn't what happens and Coke knows that.

First they can sell the smaller cans for more money for the same amount, which doesn't matter from cost of making it, but does matter to the amount someone will consume.

It's the same rationale behind 99% payouts of slot machines in the casino. It just allows someone to play longer.

Soda is loaded with sugar and nothing else. It has to be extreme moderation to not have an effect on someone's health (relative to what we think of as normal now). Coke is trying to reframe soda as somehow ok.

One way to do that is to have small cans and say 'no problem they cans are obviously tiny'. Someone will buy them and drink as much as they want anyway because what they want isn't to take a long term view of their health, they want a rationalization. That is what Coke is offering and it does happen to be what people want.

bad_user3• 11 years ago

Coke is trying to reframe soda as somehow ok.

The whole industry is continuously doing that for processed foods. It's called nutritionism. Margarine is still around, after provoking cancers and heart disease, isn't it? Now enriched with omega-3.

Elepsis• 11 years ago

It seems like you're suggesting that people are buying the small cans of Coke based on endorsements like this one, and then chugging three cans in one go to make up for the super-sized drink they'd otherwise have gotten.

What exactly is that assumption based on?

It's been abundantly demonstrated that smaller servings do help people follow through on efforts to reduce their food intake. I don't see any reason Coke should be different.

bad_user3• 11 years ago

I'd argue that no, ice cream is not worse than coca-cola. Few things are.

ryanmonroe• 11 years ago

Why do you say that? Is it because of the phosphoric acid or something else? It's definitely true that typical ice cream has more sugar per gram than Coke.

Comparing typical servings, a pint (416 grams) of Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia has 84 grams of sugar, while one 20 oz (567 grams) bottle of Coke has 65 grams of sugar.

zappo29382• 11 years ago

Oreo has a line of cookies called Thins which is thin cookies with cream filling in a 10 oz. package rather than a 16.6oz package for the same price. I often ask myself knowing that I can get more for the same price how much is the price to my health. So once in a while I will buy the mint Oreo Thins. Nothing beats an Oreo, that is fact.

I often wish restaurants had the same deal. A person should be able order a normal portion or just order a smaller portion paying the same price. I want the side of garlic roasted mash potatoes but I only need four bites so give me 1/2 the serving and charge me $4, I don't care. Restaurants have fallen into a trap of having to put a huge amount of food on a plate. A customer should be given the option to state how hungry they are, they are paying for the ambiance, experience, and food that can't easily be made at home not just the quantity of food.

I was a private yacht (120ft) chef for 6 years. I cooked everyday lunch and dinner for an older couple cruising anchorages and marinas on the Eastern Seaboard, Bahamas, and Caribbean months at a time. I'd make plain simple food everyday and serve leftovers knowing there are very few chefs on salary making more than I did. I served small portions and figure if they were hungry they would ask for more. It takes a lot of courage for a chef to make plain food and serve small portions of it. They know if they have guests on board, I'm in the mood to do something fancy like a Beef Wellington, or it is a special occasion, I can turn on the intensity, but nobody wants that all the time.

lugg• 11 years ago

Most restaurants will serve a half serve plate, especially if you pay the same amount. Just ask for it.

TeMPOraL• 11 years ago

I don't like it. Personally, I'm of the opinion that all beverages should be basically sold in three sizes: a small refillable "I'm in a hurry" travel size (say, 0.5 - 1L), a standard refillable daily-use container (say, 2 - 2.5L) and a refillable family container (say, 5L). Additionally, there should be an option to refill your bottle. It could be even metered by 1ml or something. The pre-bottled versions should be adequately more expensive - taxed with a recycling fee, and then taxed again with a "we know you ain't gonna recycle anyway" pollution fee.

I think pretty much every kind of food stuff that you buy regularly - things like ketchup, or oil, or spices, or pickles, etc. - should be available this way.

Because if you step outside your daily routine and look at the shopping experience, you'll see that it's absolutely ridiculous how much packaging you buy and throw away all the time, week after week. If you know that you're using, say, a 500ml of ketchup every week, you should be able to get a 2L bottle and refill it once a month instead of having to buy and throw away 6 bottles a month like you do today. Now take that and multiply it by all the other things you use like this - sauces, sodas, etc., then multiply by the first-world population (say, ~1B) and divide by average family size (say, 3), and you'll get billions of bottles going straight to landfill every month. This is just wrong.

The absolutely worst offenders are catering companies, who far too often think: "hey, we don't know exactly how much people will want to drink, so let's go for the least common value and buy a hundred thousand 0.5L bottles". Or the standard catering/hotel stacking mug size which ensures your guests will waste a lot of bagged tea trying to quench their thirst.

The second worst is bottled water. Especially in big cities, where municipal water is often cleaner than the supermarket one, buying bottled water is pure insanity - and yet people keep doing it all the time.

nitrogen• 11 years ago

In the 1990s there was a company with machines that provided refillable soda bottles at local supermarkets, but for whatever reason they disappeared.

Quiark• 11 years ago

I'm with you on this one. As a diver, seeing all this fing garbage in the sea makes me angrysad. I have had some success telling my friends about this problem (don't be too annoying with it) but I think the real solution is a plastic replacement such as the one made from shrimp shells or something.

neprune• 11 years ago

When there's strong suspicion you once hired militias to attack and intimidate unions [0] [1], paying off health experts feels a bit tame. It's still interesting to see how they went about it though, pushing the idea that exercise is more important in weight loss than your diet is pretty sneaky (and a patent lie).

[0] http://www.theguardian.com/media/2003/jul/24/marketingandpr....

[1] http://colombiajournal.org/colombia73.htm

Nadya• 11 years ago

First, a quick aside. I was surprised to see this, way to go Medium! http://i.imgur.com/XwJRGKV.png

Now onto an actual on-topic comment:

This comes at no real surprise to me. I'm certain Coke isn't the only soda company to be paying people off. Let alone the only company. It's nice the author researched enough into the people and the not-so-subtle advertising going on; but really... anyone with public outreach is a potential advertiser and if they're mentioning a name-brand product, you'd likely win a bet that they received a donation in some form or another.

The problem should be that these sorts of implicit bribes are legal in the first place.

pauldw• 11 years ago

Breaking News: The Suit is Back!

http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html

bennettfeely• 11 years ago

Reading this article made me want to get a glass of Coke from the fridge.

powera• 11 years ago

This article is basically an ad for a company that makes anti-tobacco and anti-sugar ads as a service. And somebody is paying them for that. Why won't they reveal the truth behind their anti-Coke propaganda?

Seriously, there's a difference between lying and product placement. Using Coke as an ingredient in barbecue sauce is completely different than saying "sugar helps me lose weight", and this article doesn't care. It's lazy at best.

knorby• 11 years ago

I drink a fair amount of diet coke/coke zero, so I've looked into aspartame more than a few times, and I have never come back concerned. I haven't seen a study that points a serious health risk to consuming aspartame found in a consumable amount of diet soda, yet it remains controversial, scary, and evil, as this article indirectly implies. This is a common belief too.

So, if the science refutes claims of danger, yet the belief persists, why shouldn't Coke promote its safety? It is one thing if a company is promoting bunk research to get away with something, but I really don't see the problem here.

wodenokoto• 11 years ago

Yeah, the aspen tame thing really got me wondering about the ethics here. It is one of the most attacked substances, yet it appears basically harmless.

If we assume it is in fact harmless, then it is actually quite ethical of Coca Cola to spend money defending it.

ninjasforhealth• 11 years ago

Great convo ya'll, thanks for sharing the article.

The New Faces of Coke

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