Coke cans go white

[drpep]

Let's not forget the morons who claim the Coke in the white cans tastes different than the Coke in the standard can.

[CitrusCola]

This article gives a good summary of the situation:

Coca-Cola Holiday Cans - Coke Can Change - Delish.com

[SamC]

KO looks foolish, and has to get proper red cans ramped up on short notice.

Lessons learned?

- White means "diet".

This is the easy one. KO's too many MBAs could not learn that.

But the other lessons are valid as well.

- Stay out of politics.

The WWF is an orginization that billions of people disagree with. If some KO middle manager does not, then he should donate to it, out of his own pocket. Corporations have ONE duty, to maximize profit, and you do that by sticking to your business.

- Santa Claus is Christmas.

Remember the flaps about Target saying "season's greetings" and Dr Pepper issuing cans with a redacted Pledge of Allegiance? Doesn't matter if they are true or not. People are sensative to that, and people hold iconic companies (KO, Disney, McDonald's, etc) to a higher standard. You keep Santa on the cans, every year.

[popologist]

I have to agree. I'm a big fan of Coca-Cola, but... I hope their holiday sales take a hit for their experimentation with politics. Why alienate half of the country by getting political? It's dumb business.

Secondly, as SamC noted... as far as Coke is concerned... Santa is Christmas. Snowflakes & snowmen & polar bears are nice... but most consumers want to see Santa. He's a harmless, cheerful, secular symbol of an important holiday to 2 billion people. Why not celebrate that with them... like they have for over 100 years?

Memo to Coca-Cola: Don't fix what isn't broken. Haven't you learned anything from the recent fiasco with Pepsi's package redesign (or "new" Coke)? *sigh*

[Mr Zabe]

Well said!

[Tannerman]

While media outlets covered the "Coke removing the white can" story pretty well, we've done some followup research on BevReview. Some of their media releases seem to retroactively change history regarding the plans for the white cans.

[ATownAndrew]

Thanks for that article Citrus Cola. My answer is people are stupid. Read the freakin can! If a white can was in a red cardboard box, how did you get it confused with diet? Yes, a white can on a taco truck cooler might be confusing until you take a second look and realize its a limited edition can. At least they are keeping the polar bears on the can, they are just switching the white with the red. And to the people complaining about the optional code to donate the WWF's Polar Bear Fund or the lack of Santa on a can, stop being such big crybabies! Wah! Wah! Wah! There, I said enough. Moving on.