As IF Times

link Live Positively.

Decades ago, Coca Cola adopted the song “I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing” by the New Seekers as part of their corporate advertising campaign.  It was a smash hit and so began the ingenious marketing program for Coca Cola which paired their product with subliminal feel good associations.  Drink coke= save the world, peace love etc etc.  Ok, seems reasonable.

Over ensuing generations the ads changed, but the underlying message was the same.  The Mean Joe Greene superbowl ad is still widely hailed as a fan favorite and even the quizzical campaigns involving cartoon polar bears was about being social and having fun.

Something must have happened at the ad agency because the recent tone of their ads has gone absolutely Bloomberg.  Consumers will notice that the tone is  less Madison Avenue and more Jewish grandmother.  Instead of saying that “Coke is it”, or preaching world peace with every bottle, they are now essentially saying that Coke is only a small part of a sensible diet combined with other intelligent food choices.  Try to write that into a jingle. Their own website is downplaying their flagship product in favour of promoting their diverse line of  other healthy ‘lifestyle’ choices.  They may as well have a skull and crossbones on their logo is the implication.

Is this a good idea? Do people want to have a figurative finger wagging in their face when they consume a fizzy drink? Do they attach a stalk of brocolli to each bottle to make everyone feel better about having a coke?  It’s hard to say whether the company is a pioneer in their marketing or are only responding to the dumbing down of society.  In fact there are many subtexts of ‘responsibility’ or of ‘greenness’ in the marketing of all manner of products today. “Organic” and “fair trade” are common labels for all kinds of things which presumably assuage consumers’ latent guilt.  Are they pre-emptively mounting a propaganda campaign to counter possible regulation of all obesity causing products?  Coca Cola does have a history of knuckling down to public pressure (http://articles.latimes.com/2012/apr/06/business/la-fi-mo-coca-cola-kraft-alec-20120406).

Or is the head of the ad campaign in fact a Jewish grandmother?  Other companies, notably the makers of Cialis are more forthright about what their products are for and don’t obfuscate their ads with preachy admonitions to use protection or to keep the noise down to protect the neighbours.  We don’t see car ads reminding people to observe all traffic rules and to wear seat belts.  We don’t see ads for women’s makeup such as Maybelline include warnings about being too slutty after an over application of their products.

Why does Coca Cola feel the need to cater to the weenie crowd?  They have a franchise and they have a cachet.  They should not screw with their recipe for success as was painfully proven by their ill fated foray into ‘New Coke’.  If they’re not careful, people will change their consumption habits just to avoid their preachiness.  At bars, people will order rum and Pepsis.  It doesn’t sound the same, but at least it comes without sanctimony.

link Study links 180,000 global deaths to sugary drinks.

From all of the learned studies that keep appearing in the news, it looks as if science is well on the way to isolating and eventually eliminating all causes of death.  This is quite remarkable and evidence that science is good for things other than keeping test tube and Bunsen burner makers in business.  As has been discussed previously, the life span of humans may yet get extended to 150.

According to a recent U.S. Census report, the world’s population is just over 7 billion people as of March of 2012; 7.074 billion to be precise, although there may have some double counting in some countries and some under-counting in others.  We don’t know if the counts took place while some were away on holidays or if some were tabulated multiple times because they kind of looked the same.

So in the grand scheme of things, according to this story, 180,000 global deaths have been linked to sugary drinks.   I didn’t even know that there was a box to be ticked in this category in the cause of death certificate for this.  So let’s see, 180,000 out of 7,000,000,000… it borders on epidemic!   According to statistics compiled by the World Health Organization, the top mortality rates worldwide in the year 2011 are shown by the following table:

It’s possible that death by sugary drinks is included under the penultimate category, Diabetes mellitus, but based on the description of that statistic, I doubt it.    More interesting to note is that road traffic accidents are a much greater scourge than drinking a big gulp.   When a statistic is offered on mortality, the initial response is ” well we must do something about this tragic circumstance” until that statistic is more closely scrutinized.  If there was a category for sugary drink death, it may reside way down the list at about 12,625th. This headline purports to show that 180,000 world deaths are linked to sugary drinks.  If this isn’t telethon material, it should be.

It could be that the zealots have surveyed the list of the major causes of death and determined that all of the big ones have been taken; heart disease, cancer, AIDS etc etc.  All that was left over was sugary drinks.  It’s a bigger push to get sympathy for this one since pictures of zaftig people drinking Mountain Dew on a hot day doesn’t play to the sympathy crowd as well as a mal-nourished baby, a bed-ridden tuberculosis patient or the most recent high profile AIDS victim.  But, to paraphrase Dr. Seuss, a crisis is a crisis no matter how small.

We expect to see the usual bureaucratic path for this particular crisis.  A ban, which won’t work, because people who want them will get them; restrictions on access which will drive up the price of the product; to perhaps licensing of vendors complete with  a registration list of customers.  None of these campaigns work unless they are funded.  Once someone convinces government to bless the cause, the natural funders will be the very corporations that sell the noxious products, namely, Coca Cola, Pepsi and their like.  To paraphrase a line from the film “Apocalypse Now”, I love the smell of lawsuits in the morning.  Saving the world is such a process.