Saturday, July 29, 2006

Habitual coke user

Joined those siblings not in Australia last night to celebrate my dad's significant birthday. Dined well on chicken livers and steak, and am also now the proud possessor of a USB rocket launcher, much to the delight of the cat.

Saying farewell to the family at Waterloo, the BBC News plasma screen played an odd exhoratation for some new kind of Coke. "Zero" is exciting because of what it doesn't have, advertising this virtue with a flashy cartoon that weaves between grown-ups at a pop concert.

"Gigs WITHOUT tall people," it says, as if such segregation were a good thing.

I do like Coke, but of the fatty, sugary, sickly variety best accompanied with aspirin after a night on the tiles. Coke was afterall invented in an age when people quaffed opiates openly and required hangover cures with bite. It's a marvellous, miraculous pick-me-up.

Am not offended by Zero targetting tall folks so much as disallowed from joining in with the fun. I boast (yet again) the wrong dimensions; it's more for the shorter breed of groupie.

And for the larger, shorter ones at that. Am not entirely sure what Zero has zero of - sugar, calories, Alzheimer's-inducing chemicalia - but it's odd to see something promoted for not even touching the sides.

1 comment:

Pete Kempshall said...

Interesting that they're rolling Zero out over there now with a more direct marketing approach than they used in Australia.

It hit the shops here earlier this year on the back of a stealth marketing campaign attached to a blog called The Zero Movement. It had no overt links to Coke to begin with, and the idea was that the blog would tap into the young, less-than-PC crowd who thought Diet Coke was 'a bit girly'. Entries on the blog asked questions like why the chicks flick formula doesn't run boy meets girl, boy gets girl, boy watches footy while girl waits on him.

Opinion in marketing circles, apparently, was that it was a resounding failure, accused of blatantly trying to manufacture word-of-mouth cool the product hadn't actually earned. The Bulletin magazine tore the campaign to bits, calling Coke:

'the soft drink equivalent of that try-hard teacher we all had in school. You know, the one who let you use their Christian name out of hours and name-dropped bands that were five years out of date.'

Either way, it didn't tempt me to try it - zero sugar and mega caffeine? Coffee it is, then.