The purpose of a recent ad released by Coca-Cola Mexico was to “break down prejudice and share” at a time when the soft drink company faces greater scrutiny over the role its products play in Mexico’s obesity epidemic.
It seems to have had the opposite effect, and Coke took the ad down from YouTube after various advocacy groups within the country called for its removal this week.
In short, the spot (which was created by Ogilvy Mexico) recruited some suspiciously light-skinned young people to tell indigenous folks that they shouldn’t be ashamed for being who they are…and that they should drink more Coke while they’re at it. While the spot is no longer visible on the official Coca-Cola YouTube page, critics at the Latino Rebels blog re-published it.
Its opening line reads: “81.6% of indigenous Mexicans have felt like outcasts for speaking a language other than Spanish.”
As the Associated Press put it, the real heroes of the ad are “a truckload of festive, fashion model-looking white people driving into the remote hills of Oaxaca hauling Coke and a Christmas tree as a service project.”
The Latino Rebels say the ad “commercializes and legitimizes ‘white savior’ complex,” and The Alliance for Food Health, a “coalition of consumer rights and health groups,” scored coverage on Fox News after asking Coke to stop running it.
This news comes after The New York Times ran an expose on a “research group” that Coca-Cola created for one purpose: to tell the public that exercise is more important than dietary choices when managing one’s weight. They basically created a pseudo-academic team to let consumers know that the amount of Coke one drinks doesn’t really matter as long it is balanced with regular exercise. Unfortunately, every single longitudinal study on the subject came to the opposite conclusion: reducing consumption has a greater effect on weight loss than working out. It’s not even close.
Coke’s global CEO told the Associated Press last week that the group would be disbanded because “there was not a sufficient level of transparency,” fucking duh.
In other news, Americans continue to buy more bottled water as soda consumption drops across all demographics, so Coca-Cola will somehow survive.