Tuesday, November 20, 2012

If Coca-Cola Never Markets to Kids What's it Doing in Comic Books?


Just wanted to remind you of a quote from the Coca-Cola company advertisement that I found a few years ago in the Canadian Medical Association Journal,
"Parents tell us they prefer to be the ones teaching their children about beverage choices. That's why for over 50 years we've adhered to a company policy that prohibits advertising soft drinks to children."
Now I've blasted that claim out of the water a few times. First with the 17 YouTube videos that I pulled up in a matter of moments that clearly demonstrate Coca-Cola's predatory practice of targeting kids, and then later with a post highlighting all the toys Coca-Cola brands for children.

Today let's add comic books.

There's the co-branded book up above, and here's an ad that appeared in comic books themselves that tell kids Coca-Cola Classic is, "Always Great for Good Sports"


And here's another Hulk co-branded Coca Cola comic


Coca-Cola also made a series of comic books featuring hockey legend Brett Hull along with McDonald's


And just in case you missed it here's the photo from yesterday's blog post with the 2007 Vancouver Rogers' Christmas Parade Coca-Cola float that couldn't possibly be targeting kids.


Right Coca-Cola? That float, and the parade itself, clearly they're not meant to target kids.

You know I've got nothing against Coca-Cola peddling its sugar water to children, that's what free markets allow corporations to do (whether free markets should is a whole different topic) - but blatantly lying to society about not doing so and pretending to be good corporate citizens who care about your children - that's just not cool.