cradleandshoot wrote: ↑Mon Apr 05, 2021 11:32 am
MDlaxfan76 wrote: ↑Mon Apr 05, 2021 11:16 am
cradleandshoot wrote: ↑Mon Apr 05, 2021 11:07 am
MDlaxfan76 wrote: ↑Mon Apr 05, 2021 10:53 am
cradleandshoot wrote: ↑Mon Apr 05, 2021 10:37 am
MDlaxfan76 wrote: ↑Mon Apr 05, 2021 9:46 am
cradleandshoot wrote: ↑Mon Apr 05, 2021 8:51 am
dislaxxic wrote: ↑Mon Apr 05, 2021 8:41 am
Pepsi is and always was WAY better anyway.
..
I worked for them for 20 years as well before they laid me off. My job was the same for both companies. Install fountain equipment and coolers and vendors and repair them. I never had any real loyalty to either brand. I just did my job. My philosophy will always be don't mix your business with politics.
yeah, the problem is that supporting democracy, encouraging voting, shouldn't be "politics" in any partisan sense...it
should be as All-American as apple pie, etc. And Coca-Cola. On brand.
Of course, it's very much an international brand, though consistent with what might be called "liberal" American democracy values:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2406n8_rUw
a more recent (2015) version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miPcx5mi3Rs
and how the company wishes to be seen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5b18LXBpVDo
re COVID: April a year ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fp6UZ_I4zj0
I worked for Coca Cola long enough to be well aware of how hypersensitive they are when it comes to PC culture. I can tell you when some of the big wigs talk "off the record" they will admit it is a game they have to play. The problem is for both Coke and Pepsi on a national corporate level, their good customers come in Democrat and Republican flavors. They all tend to buy a lot of sugar water over the course of the year. The corporate folks seldom talk about cases of product like local management does... THEY PREACH VOLUME and lots of it. Coca Cola big wigs are doing what they see is best for the company image. They have to be aware of the repercussions of offending the political sensitivities of in this case Georgia Republicans who drive a huge number of that VOLUME that the people at Coca Cola work so hard to build. Easy to lose and really hard to get back. Any KAM ( key account manager) knows that drill very well.
yeah, that first ad was back in 1971...let's just say they've been "hypersensitive" to the culture for a long time and have found it in their business interests to be aligned with what at least some would call progressive liberal democratic values (others would call that American values). Sure, the KKK/Proud Boys sorts probably drink a lot of COKE (no Diet Coke for them!) but it pales in comparison to the overall market. And the overall market has been leaning forward in social progress, not backward...and corporations that serve consumers know this...it's only recently become "PC" with some folks and labelled "partisan" to be leaning forward, "woke". Enough that the former POTUS calls for boycotts because corporations are deciding to stand in favor of voting access...and we all know we can't have that, Trumpists might lose!
This become what I call MD the "chit rolls downhill" problem. It no longer becomes a gripe about what Coca Cola big wigs in Atlanta think. It is when that republican owner of a very big restaurant chain in Rochester takes it personal enough to call Pepsi and allow them to become their new beverage provider. This will happen to one degree or another all over the country. The loss of business has nothing to do with service or pricing it involves the owner taking personal offense to the corporate people. This does not bother the Coca Cola people in Atlanta one little bit. The independent coke distributor is the one who takes it in the shorts. That is their case volume walking out the door that may never come back. It is what it is. IMO Coca Cola should have stayed out of it. That ship has sailed now.
well sure, so organize a campaign to get Pepsi on the record too...what's their posture?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on- ... -at-pepsi/
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/pepsi ... elsewhere/
https://thehill.com/policy/technology/5 ... ott-report
Pepsi I believe is still split into 2 halves. There is the business and marketing end and there is the bottling and manufacturing end. I believe the bottling business is still called PBG. As a general rule I think they would would do everything in their power to sidestep such a thorny political issue. Coca Cola is Atlanta, that is their national headquarters, they have a mind boggling operation that runs there, the coca cola museum is there. they train technicians there on all aspects of their equipment that they manufacture exclusive to coca cola. I don't understand why they did it. They are taking a political stand that could come back to bite them in the ass. The powers that be see it as a moral imperative to take a stand. The game will play out one way or another. This game has all kinds of interesting possibilities in a hypothetical sense. If the McDonalds corporate people were to give the Coca Cola corporate people any kind of blow back... chit will hit the fan. That probably won't happen but these big restaurant chains hate bad publicity in any way, shape or form.
I'd be willing to bet that the McDonald's folks would never criticize Coca-Cola for this move, they serve consumers too.
The thing that maybe some folks don't understand is that many consumers want to know the values of the companies whose products they buy...AND typically those who care have leaned forward in their social views, not backward. Doesn't mean that
some consumers won't boycott a company, say Nike, for embracing leading edge such values, but far more go the other way and reward the company for said values.
Voting access is at least a 70:30 issue in America, with a majority of conservatives supporting increased voter access. A company doesn't want to be aligned with the minority on an issue like this, particularly not the even smaller minority who would actively go the other way.