Clever Marketing Or Undermining Health Issues? This Coca-Cola Ad Successfully Does Both!
Advertisements are rarely informative and offer simple truths. That would just be poor marketing, which would eventually destroy the brand, especially if it is in the fast-food or artificially sweetened and carbonated beverage segment. But somehow Coca-Cola, the world’s biggest soft-drink maker, has managed to do both in its latest campaign.
Coca-Cola is apparently taking on obesity, the number 1 ailment that its products are accused of causing. The online ad is an attempt to show just how fun it would be to burn off 140 Calories. Coca-Cola has calculated that its regular sized can holds 140 calories.
In the ad, the world’s biggest beverage maker asks what would happen if people paid for a can of Coke by first working off the calories it contained. The ad points out that it takes about 23 minutes of constant cycling to burn 140 Calories, reported Daily Zone. To achieve the same, Coca-Cola set up a huge stationary cycle. The ad shows a montage of people on a giant stationary bicycle happily trying to earn a can of its cola, with carnival music playing in the background, reported abc news.
Coca-Cola has surely managed to come-up with a unique and weirdly honest ad campaign that so frankly addresses how many calories are in its drink. But the company skillfully manages to turn the frequent criticism dished out by health advocates into a fun for all activity. It sort-of demeans the whole concept of soft-drinks laced with sugar causing obesity, lamented Michele Simon, a public health lawyer and author of “Appetite for Profit: How the Food Industry Undermines Our Health and How to Fight Back; “It’s so clever on so many levels, but it’s twisted too.”
Coca-Cola’s video comes at a time when soft drinks are facing continually growing criticism from health advocates, who justifiably say soft drinks fuel obesity and chronic diseases related to diet. Numerous cities have tried to impose special taxes on sugary drinks, although none have succeeded, in large part because of heavy lobbying from the beverage industry.
Coca-Cola has successfully pulled-off such tactics, which attempt at sharing the blame for America’s rising obese population. Last year, the company organized a campaign which stated that weight gain is the result of consuming too many calories of any kind, not just soda.
Though the ad may be all fun-n-games, but it does stress the need for physical activities as a surefire way to ward off the evil effects of consuming sugary drinks including those made by Coca-Cola.
[Image Credit| Coca-Cola, Toby Melville]
