Tilting At Vending Machines…
Bolivians: Coca-Cola should drop ‘coca’
LA PAZ, Bolivia – Always Coca-Cola? Not if Bolivia’s coca growers have their way. The farmers want the word "Coca" dropped by the U.S. soft drink company, arguing that the potent shrub belongs to the cultural heritage of this Andean nation, where the coca leaf infuses everyday life and is sacred to many.
A commission of coca industry representatives advising an assembly rewriting Bolivia’s constitution passed a resolution Wednesday calling on the Atlanta, Ga.-based company to take "Coca" out of its name and asking the United Nations to decriminalize the leaf.
The resolution demands that "international companies that include in their commercial name the name of coca (example: Coca Cola) refrain from using the name of the sacred leaf in their products."
The commission, which met for three days in Sucre, 255 miles southeast of La Paz, is part of an effort led by President Evo Morales to rehabilitate the image of plant, used in the Andes for millennia but better known internationally as the base ingredient of cocaine.
Oh they’ll get right on it I’m sure…
Coca-Cola released a statement Thursday saying their trademark is "the most valuable and recognized brand in the world" and was protected under Bolivian law.
I can appreciate the sentiment. I’d like it just fine thank you, if words on a product label actually meant things the way real words do. But you have to realize that a product label isn’t there to tell you what the product actually Is. Think of them as little mini advertisements that get put on cans and bottles and boxes of stuff. They’re there to make you buy whatever they’ve been pasted onto, not to tell you what it is you’re buying.
But let me put it this way: if an American food and beverage corporation can feel perfectly fine putting the words ‘Country’ and ‘Time’ and ‘Lemonade’ in the name of an instant drink mix product that is mass produced in factories and in no way shape or form has, or ever did have, any actual lemonade in it, then let’s face it, we’re doing pretty darn good that we can say Coca-Cola has any Cola in it at all, let alone any Coca.
Er…it does still have Cola in it…doesn’t it? Some? I don’t drink the stuff anymore myself…
March 23rd, 2007 at 6:01 am
The thing is, it /used/ to have coca in it, back when they started. As you can imagine, it was much stronger then and had that real ‘pick me up’ effect. *rolls eyes* The changed the recipe when people realised it was, like, a DRUG! *OHNOES*
No way are they changing the name. A noble, but futile effort.