Last week, more savvy blogs were buzzing about PepsiCo president and chief financial officer Indra Nooyi’s US-bashing, Asia-pandering speech at Columbia University’s MBA graduation ceremony. Nooyi compared each of the five major continents to a finger, and guess who was the middle finger?
Since I’m on the subject of soda: While I’m fully aware of how vulgar soda consumption is, I admit to occasionally eschewing my afternoon cup of joe in favor of a refreshing, life-affirming diet soda (that would be the first afternoon cup of joe, not the second one). Diet Coke was my brand, but this year, with Pepsi’s free iTunes song contest, I started purchasing Diet Pepsi.
Not that I won much, and certainly not 1 in every 3 bottles. What an ingenuous marketing ploy for a soda. A contest with a 99 cent prize wouldn’t sway me to buy a different brand of, say, salad dressing, spaghetti sauce, deodorant, or newspaper, but since all soda is equally bad for you and made by equally evil people, at least I have a shot of recouping my nonessential expense.
Strangely, I rapidly developed a liking for Diet Pepsi, and even though Pepsi now offers “Sports Points” instead of iTunes songs, I still reach for the Diet Pepsi. How proud the marketing folks at Pepsi would be! How Coke would resent my lack of cohort brand loyalty!
