The Coke Can Conundrum
If you have bought Coca Cola recently, you must have noticed a change in the colour of your can from the traditional red can with the Coca-Cola logo to a white can. Do you know why?
If you watch tv or have been to the movies recently, you would know that Coca-Cola has teamed up with WWF (World Wildlife Fund) to promote awareness for it’s long time icon, the Polar Bear. I am sure you know the Polar Bear is endangered. Their habitat (arctic sea ice) is at risk, due to global climate change.
Well the partnership between Coca-Cola and WWF has been around for a few years, but this new ad campaign has made it aware to the public. Which I think is great news, that Coca Cola is planning to donate $ 2 million to the Polar Bear fund over 5 years, plus match $ 1 Million. At first I felt that since Coca Cola has used the Polar Bear for years, it’s about damn time, and with all the money they make the amount seems low. I also thought, how is money going to stop arctic ice from melting. It is this kind of thinking that is why animals like the Polar Bear are going extinct in the first place.
We need to think outside of the box, the Partnership is just that, it actually promotes fresh water conservation (since water is a main ingredient in all of it’s products) and climate protection, since the company emits a lot of CO2 and plans to reduce this in efforts to halt global warming. The only way we can truly prevent the ice from melting is to reduce our CO2 and Green House Gas (GHG) emissions through daily activities and renewable energy sources. Coca-Cola is promoting change, which is the only way to fight global climate change, save the sea ice, and the Polar Bears.
So what is the problem?? Well it appears some people don’t like the white can and have complained to Coca-Cola. Why, the can is to close in colour to Diet Coke, some even claimed that Coca-Cola is trying to mix coke and diet coke or to trick customers to make them shift to Diet Coke. Some even called the colour change “sacrelige”. This has cause so much problems that Coca-Cola is actually taking them off the shelves and going back to red, with the Arctic Home design.
First of all, many products change colour for the holiday seasons, red and green M &Ms, red and green and white wrappers on most candy bars, pictures of Santa along with the regular logo. These products all taste the same, yet they do not have to be removed from the shelves, so why are customers picking on Coca-Cola?
Second, I wonder how much money that will cost them, how much carbon emissions and how much product will go to waste by doing that. I hope that money does not come out of the Polar Bear fund. By doing this I feel that Coca-Cola is being a hyprocrite, they will excrete more emissions by sending transports back to collect all the white cans, then what will they do with them, I doubt they will be recycled. I have just come across a page that says Coca-Cola intended to go to red cans with the polar bear for a Phase 2 of the Polar Bear awareness campaign. Not sure what kind of marketing is going on if this is true.
I have to quote the Toronto Star, “The white cans were supposed to last until February 2012. Instead, they’ll soon be extinct.” My question is, if people aren’t willing to accept the change in the colour of a can, how are they going to change their activiities to reduce their own emissions and carbon footprint to fight climate change.
For Related articles please see:
The Holiday Can Fact Sheet:
For More info on Polar Bears and The WWF Partnership with Coca Cola please see these:
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