The problem probably was that Coke isn’t in the soda creating business. People already drink a ridiculous amount of sodas. Coke is in the soda cheapening business, the only thing left for them to do is cut corners until making soda costs nothing. New sodas are just an opportunity for them to redefine cheap to a new low. This is why you should buy independent, small scale soda companies. Their entire business model is making something better than Coke.
They do a lot more advert creation than they do drink creation.
Pretty much all modern branded consumer goods invest way more on brand recognition and the kind of advertising that says nothing about quality and is purelly designed to create a subconsciously association they brand and positive feelings and/or make it seem socially fashionable (you know the kind: happy friends around a campfire having fun with package-of-branded-good on their hands)
(Those things are actually funny to analyse: generally drinks do “social/trendy”, perfumes do “sex”, cars do “freedom”)
At some point in the 60s in the US a nephew of Freud (I kid you not!) introduced actual teachings from the Science of Psychology into Advertising and since then consumers of large brands have been mostly manipulated via that kind of psychologically manipulative advert. Nowadays you pretty much only see other kinds of adverts for cases like small brands trying to expand brand recognition (something the likes of Coka-Cola doesn’t need), and for the rest seldom are the actual qualities of the product being sold mentioned.
I don’t think cheap is what they’re after. Unless you mean this somehow helps their margins? Around here a 20oz soda is approaching $3 USD when just a year ago it was nearly half that. That’s definitely not cheap.
The problem probably was that Coke isn’t in the soda creating business. People already drink a ridiculous amount of sodas. Coke is in the soda cheapening business, the only thing left for them to do is cut corners until making soda costs nothing. New sodas are just an opportunity for them to redefine cheap to a new low. This is why you should buy independent, small scale soda companies. Their entire business model is making something better than Coke.
Coke is in the branding business, IMHO.
They do a lot more advert creation than they do drink creation.
Pretty much all modern branded consumer goods invest way more on brand recognition and the kind of advertising that says nothing about quality and is purelly designed to create a subconsciously association they brand and positive feelings and/or make it seem socially fashionable (you know the kind: happy friends around a campfire having fun with package-of-branded-good on their hands)
(Those things are actually funny to analyse: generally drinks do “social/trendy”, perfumes do “sex”, cars do “freedom”)
At some point in the 60s in the US a nephew of Freud (I kid you not!) introduced actual teachings from the Science of Psychology into Advertising and since then consumers of large brands have been mostly manipulated via that kind of psychologically manipulative advert. Nowadays you pretty much only see other kinds of adverts for cases like small brands trying to expand brand recognition (something the likes of Coka-Cola doesn’t need), and for the rest seldom are the actual qualities of the product being sold mentioned.
I don’t think cheap is what they’re after. Unless you mean this somehow helps their margins? Around here a 20oz soda is approaching $3 USD when just a year ago it was nearly half that. That’s definitely not cheap.
Cheap for them to make, not for us to buy.