It's Just Sugar Water, Stupid

Coca-Cola's old school propaganda on the beverage tax is an insult and a missed opportunity.

A full bore campaign to defeat a possible tax on sugary drinks is underway (the tax has been proposed as a possible source of revenue to support health care reform):

• The lobbying group calling itself "Americans Against Food Taxes" is running a TV spot called "Pennies" that claims a few cents' tax on the gallons of soda pop a family is obligated to buy would put undo hardship on its finances
• The trade media is claiming that a tax intended to curtail consumption "...would create serious problems and potentially impact sales for the American beverage industry"
• Coca-Cola's CEO reportedly said that the proposal was "outrageous," and that if the government could tell people what to eat and drink, "...the Soviet Union would still be around." Its full-page newspaper ads declare that "Americans are realizing the importance of living a balanced, healthy lifestyle," which is supported by the calorie counts on its labels, a smaller can size, and some sort of guidelines Coke helped bring to schools. The web site promoting these things is gloriously ill-named, over-produced, and devoid of meaningful content

Ruminations of Food Totalitarianism aside, there are two simple, underlying truths that make the anti-tax campaign not only disingenuous, but hollow:

1. We're talking about soda pop, not guns or nicotine
2. Coke wants us to drink as much as possible, as it should

Wouldn't common sense have been far a more authentic basis for the industry's counter-attack? Coke isn't food, it's not good for you, and it isn't part of a healthy diet any more than waking up is part of a good night's sleep. But it's not a hazardous substance, either; it's sugar water and, like just about anything, it's dangerous when idiots consume it in large quantities. Holding soda pop accountable for obesity is like accusing gum of causing jaw damage because some people chew too hard.

Imagine "Are You Serious?" as the headline for a newspaper ad, and the theme woven through social media -- a contest for people to nominate other inane things to regulate or tax, for instance -- and comments by Coke execs that let us know that they know that the tax proposal is silly.

The reason why I think this approach would be more authentic (whether I'd support it or not isn't the point) is that it wouldn't crash into Coke's basic desire for all of us to drink our fool heads off:

• Drive-thru cups are sized for giants
• Restaurants push free refills
• Store bottles are so large they don't fit in some refrigerators
• Fast-food straws are wide enough to amplify sound

Its entire business model depends on people viewing Coke as something akin to water coming out of a faucet. Drink Coke, as one of its taglines goes, so to claim separately that its goal is something else just doesn't jibe with the operational reality of its business. None of the promises of molecule-sized cans or consumption guidelines changes this fact; worse, I'd argue that its anti-tax campaign denies these facts, in the same way that the oil companies try to duck the fact that they make money from pumping gunk out of the ground and selling it to us as often as we want it.

And, like the oil companies, the false bravado of Coke's campaign amounts to cognitive dissonance that comes across like they know that they're guilty of something.  

There's some proof that support for the tax is waning, but nobody can make the case that the campaign was responsible. Even it the effort is helping, I still question what this sort of old school propagandizing does to Coke's brand, and whether it could have been pursued in a way that was authentic and supportive of it.

I would have recommended that the company focus on an approach that was based on telling a simple fact, whether to consumers of its propaganda, or of its drinks:

It's just sugar water, stupid.