So, Coca-Cola has made it's largest purchase ever. Unbelievably, they bought the well-known Vitamin Water brand, which is definitely an up-and-coming company. I mean, they have Kelly Clarkson doing their commercials, 50-Cent... it's amazing how everything is owned by everything now. Sometimes I kind of feel a little cheated, like I don't actually know who I'm buying from. Obviously, it's my role as a consumer to be aware of where the products I buy come from, but it's like following a bread-crumb trail.
Per usual, Stephen Colbert explains it best. But then again, is there anything that Stephen Colbert doesn't do better than us mere mortals. Probbbbbsss not.
Last year at Hampshire there was this whole "ban Coca-Cola on campus", led by some of my radical-vegan-anarchist-anti-capitalist-twenty-seven-other-descriptive-nouns-housemates. I honestly didn't really care at the time. I didn't grow up in household where Coke was present, so I didn't drink it, and didn't care who does. Besides which, I was wrapped up in my own shit. Of course, what does it take to actually google where the products you buy come from. Here, I'll make it easy and do it for ya.
Coca-Cola owns: over 70 brands in the US alone, including A&W Root Beer, Bacardi, Barq's, Dasani, Dannon, Nestea, High-C, Minute Maid, Nature's Own, Odwalla, Powerade, Real Gold, Samantha, Simply Orange, Sprite, Schweppes, TAB, and Viva.
I'm sure to the average consumer, some of those are unrecognizable. Great example: Odwalla. It might not mean a lot to someone who didn't buy Odwalla before it was bought by Coke, but I bought Odwalla because it was healthy, natural, and a small-brand. That's just the way I operate, I have a fondness for the little guy, and I like my juice without "things-that-could-preserve-your-body-for-science-but-can-also-be-found-in-your-fruity-beverage".
I was actually annoyed when Odwalla got bought. Like the guys who sit at their desks doing brand marketing there had some sort of loyalty to me, the crunchy food hippie, and by filling their pockets and cruising for early retirement, had somehow betrayed me. But I'm a realist, and I'm not my Hampshire housemates, so I'm not shocked when a company I like gets eaten up by big business conglomerates. In the kind of market we live in, it's hard to afford both your mortgage and your morals.
Yet somehow, I was still blown away by the fact that Vitamin Water got bought out. "Sellouts." That's the first thing that popped into my head. Why? Because they have catchy one liners on their labels, so therefore they must be both hip to world problems and aware of the dangerous monopoly they're entering into. Wellllll obviously, these two things don't go hand in hand. In fact, they rarely do. How often do you find a company that's off-beat, original, and more willing to go down in flames than be bought out?
The Vitamin Water labels are funny, the product is centered on well-being and health, and they come in a visually dazzling rainbow of colors. But that's where it ends. That's what their marketing team is PAID to do. It's paid to make me, the consumer, think that I'm buying a product from a group of scruffy, funny, recent graduates who care about me and want to put something good out into the world.
The thing is, it's not that you can't have it both ways, you CAN. I just don't WANT to. I would rather drink water from the tap, and no, it's not fortified withVitamin 700b1256 or whatever the new-age miracle supplement is. But at least I know that I'm not filling the pockets of a company that stands on the opposite side of the ethical-ocean from me.
Sometimes I buy Fiji water. You know why? It's the biggest water bottle I can buy, and it's pretty. Yup, you read that: I like the pink flower on the bottle. It's shallow, and I know it. But part of being an ethical consumer is checking myself. I'll mindlessly buy something, but when I check myself, I realize I have to sacrifice some of my own comfort to stand in line with the the ethical guidelines I want to adhere to. Sometimes I'm, not willing to do that, because I'm that selfish, American, buyer has been so deeply ingrained in me. But after my room-mates launched a campaign against Coke, and after I got over feeling persecuted like a little brat, I eventually did look up what was so bad about Coca-Cola.
(I would say those inclined to argue against the reported violations would be more comfortable with the most reputable link, which is the third.)
Coke sued for Human Rights Violations.
Coca-Cola debate at Chicago University.
The Nation on the Case against Coke.
