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29th January 2007

Cold Reality… like a Bucket of Powerade

posted in Uncategorized |
Posted by Jeff Klineman, Monday, January 29th, 2007 at 5:52 pm

Using brands like Honest Tea (congrats on the ten-digit cash infustion, guys!) and Cinnabon (congrats on not being sued over all the cavities, guys!) as examples, today’s Wall Street Journal reported on the fact that Coke bottlers are trying to make money by selling drinks that aren’t made by Coke.

This was news to Coke. Not that their bottlers were selling non-Coke products, but that there WERE non-Coke products.

Best part of the story comes when a Coke spokesman explains “Our role is to create innovation in our categories and we are working closely with our system to do that.”

Dude. Mary Minnick. Your. Director. Of Innovation. Just. Quit.

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There is currently one response to “Cold Reality… like a Bucket of Powerade”

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  1. 1 On January 29th, 2007, Anonymous said:

    Coke’s innovation has been based on buying or borrowing new ideas from other companies. It’s always the same game: new companies with new products need the distribution muscle of CCE and believe that once they enter the system miracles will start happening… The excitement lasts about 6 months. In most of the cases nothing happens and they are in the system but still have to hire an army of sales people and regional managers to sell their products and forward the orders to CCE (see Bravo!). The benefit to the newcomers is that they can much easier get funding if they can show a distribution agreement with CCE. Investors who otherwise would never buy Coke’s shares “bite” into the “opportunity” and end up losing their shirts (see Bravo!).
    I don’t think anybody should be crying about the departure of Mary Minnick (I bet she is laughing all the way to the bank). One person cannot change the culture at Coke.
    Let them just be what they are – Coke…

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