The New Faces of Coke

There definitely are some shady endorsements happening here, but I really don&#x27;t see a problem with this one:<p><i>“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!”</i> - Sarah Bedwell<p>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&#x27;t get nearly the negative attention because everyone knows it&#x27;s an unhealthy treat.

&quot;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.&quot;<p>Why wouldn&#x27;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.<p>Also Coca-Cola as a glaze for food doesn&#x27;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.

One cannot help but wonder if the Soda industry is&#x2F;will become the Tobacco industry of 50 years ago.

When there&#x27;s strong suspicion you once hired militias to attack and intimidate unions [0] [1], paying off health experts feels a bit tame. It&#x27;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).<p>[0] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theguardian.com&#x2F;media&#x2F;2003&#x2F;jul&#x2F;24&#x2F;marketingandpr.colombia" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theguardian.com&#x2F;media&#x2F;2003&#x2F;jul&#x2F;24&#x2F;marketingandpr....</a><p>[1] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;colombiajournal.org&#x2F;colombia73.htm" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;colombiajournal.org&#x2F;colombia73.htm</a>

&gt; [...] 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?”<p>What does &quot;do something&quot; mean? That statement reads like a fairly blatant request for a bribe.

First, a quick aside. I was surprised to see this, way to go Medium! <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;i.imgur.com&#x2F;XwJRGKV.png" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;i.imgur.com&#x2F;XwJRGKV.png</a><p>Now onto an actual on-topic comment:<p>This comes at no real surprise to me. I&#x27;m certain Coke isn&#x27;t the only soda company to be paying people off. Let alone the only company. It&#x27;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&#x27;re mentioning a name-brand product, you&#x27;d likely win a bet that they received a donation in some form or another.<p>The problem should be that these sorts of implicit bribes are legal in the first place.

I drink a fair amount of diet coke&#x2F;coke zero, so I&#x27;ve looked into aspartame more than a few times, and I have never come back concerned. I haven&#x27;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.<p>So, if the science refutes claims of danger, yet the belief persists, why shouldn&#x27;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&#x27;t see the problem here.

This article is basically an ad for a company that makes anti-tobacco and anti-sugar ads as a service. And <i>somebody</i> is paying them for that. Why won&#x27;t they reveal the truth behind their anti-Coke propaganda?<p>Seriously, there&#x27;s a difference between lying and product placement. Using Coke as an ingredient in barbecue sauce is completely different than saying &quot;sugar helps me lose weight&quot;, and this article doesn&#x27;t care. It&#x27;s lazy at best.

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

Great convo ya&#x27;ll, thanks for sharing the article.