Cola Wars: Coke v Pepsi

Cola wars? Not really. Both companies win. Perhaps it's the people who lose.

Australian viewers can see it on SBS On-Demand until 26 April. It's retitled "Drink Wars" to sound less American.

I'm fairly cynical about most advertising. This documentary, showing how cola advertising makes these companies 11-figure sums of money, just by selling brown sugary water, reinforced my view.

Here's what I learnt:

Big money

Coke spends $6 billion a year on marketing. Pepsi is almost identical at $5.8 billion.

At first we might think that their efforts cancel each other out, but it's more likely that the combined effect makes us buy even more of the stuff.

The "Pepsi generation"

In the 60s, Pepsi targeted the youth market with the phrase "Pepsi generation". Your parents drink Coke but the next generation is cool and drink Pepsi.

They did it again in 1983 with Michael Jackson, and in the late 90's with the Spice Girls. It seems every generation is the Pepsi generation. Or perhaps the marketing is meaningless hype. ;)

Pepsi challenge

In the 70s, Pepsi did blind taste tests, and found most people preferred Pepsi - even though most bought Coke.

So it seems Coke's advertising was "successful". If success is tricking us into purchasing a product we enjoy less.

New Coke

Partially in reaction to the Pepsi challenge, Coke produced a new formula. They blind-tested it with tens of thousands of people, and "New Coke" was a clear winner.

But shops aren't blind taste tests. People believed they liked the old formula and there was a consumer rebellion. Perhaps the power of years of Coke advertising had come back to bite the company.

There were protests in the streets. People demanded the old (inferior) Coke be returned. And it was.

Baby's first word

One of the people interviewed in the street protests was asked why she was so passionate.

"My daughter is 22. Her first word was 'Coke'. Her second was 'Mommy'."

I'm still not precisely sure how that's relevant, but I'm more intrigued by the situation where a soft drink brand name is pervasive enough to be an infant's first word. It just doesn't seem right.

They treat us like puppets

Coke's 1995 ad was explicitly taking place about 11am. In reality that's way earlier than people drank Coke, but following the ad, consumer behaviour changed.

People now drank earlier and drank more. In 1998, the average American drank the equivalent of 723 cans a year. An all-time high.

I wonder if the people who started drinking Coke in the morning admit they did so because the ad told the to - or whether this is a subconscious level of brainwashing.

We're not paying for cola

A number of the advertising experts pointed out what cola companies really sell:

"You're not just buying a fizzy drink. You're buying a brand and a whole lifestyle that comes with it"

Can I just have the drink?

"It's not just about the liquid ... those liquids represent far bigger concepts: freedom, youth, rebellion, originality...."

I would have thought freedom, rebellion and originality would mean not buying the same drink as a billion other people, just because an advert told me to.

"Both brands are not just selling product. They're selling a feeling . And they will continue to market this feeling and sell it in absolute bucketloads."

Probably true.

In short

OK, so the companies spend heaps, to trick us into spending even more, to buy a product we don't like that much, and drink it when the ads tell us to drink it.

So what do we do?

We can do ourselves a favour and consume less advertising. It's the mind games that start so much of the problem.

We can buy the generic brand of cola, if we genuinely like fizzy drink. We'll also save money because we're not buying the "feeling".

We can probably wait until our kids can speak before we tell them about softdrink brands. ;)