Bet you thought Coca Cola was just soft drinks and flavoured waters. So did I – until I happened across a brief corporate news release announcing a new Coke product. It wasn’t the new product that captured my attention, but the throw-away facts the Coke folks included in the release for context…
Still frame from a Coke Life TV ad in the UK. Not all who’ve tried it agree
that’s it’s all that great…
First, the new product…
It’s Coke Life, already sold in other markets around the globe, but coming to Canada for the first time. Coke Life is described, officially, as a blend of all good things soda-wise: “[It] offers great Coca-Cola taste, sweetened from natural sources and containing 50% fewer calories than regular colas (that’s 70 calories in a 355 mL can).”
Coke Life actually contains a combination of Cane Sugar and zero-calorie Stevia, a herbal-source sweetener with no connections to the Sucrose family. That combo gives you low calories and, “the great Coca-Cola taste Canadians know and love.”
And there’s an enticing PS to the news release: Coke will be handing out a million free samples of Coke Life across Canada in the days and weeks to come.
Alas! Not everyone agrees, in markets where Coke Life has already been rolled out, that the new product is all Coke cracks it up to be.
But what really got me was the background info…
In its Coke Life news release, the company’s PR folks let slip some info that most non-food industry writers would consider surprising if not alarming:
The Coca-Cola Company is very excited to welcome Coca-Cola Life to our family of over 300 beverages available in Canada, more than 70 of which are reduced-, low- or no-calorie.
Holy moley! What are all those other brands we never knew were owned by Coke?
You can scan a full list of Coke’s world-wide brand menu at Wikipedia. It’s amazing. You’ll be floored by some of the brands they control, like Nestea canned and bottled drinks, Apollinaris waters, Bacardi mixers, Dannon and Dasani, Schweppes, Five Alive, Frutopia, Minute Maid… The just goes on and on. And the profits all flow back, eventually, to Atlanta. Talk about a global conglomerate. And if they don’t own it, It seems Pepsi Co. does!
Anyway…
I thought you should know.
~ Maggie J.