Coca Cola PR Machine Brain Washing

So, has anyone seen this new Coca Cola Hug Machine thing? Where you hug it, and it gives you free Coca Cola.



I find this offensive. I find it conducive to brain washing. Now, I know some of you are going to say, "But Grif, it's just a promotion. Like a advertisement or something." I dunno. Just because it's a vending machine, it's still got the trademark Coke colours. If MacDonalds ran a promotion where you just had to do certain favors for Ronald MacDonald, and you got a free McNugget, I'd be offended too. But mostly because of how that Clown creeps me out. But I digress.

Coca Cola has a legacy of greed and evil around the world. From murdering union leaders, to providing a legitimate face on certain coca growers. Yeah, and when they decocainize the leaves for the flavor extract they put in the Coca Cola, they throw it right in the trash. Sure. Right.

A lot of people have an unhealthy amount of attachment to this company. Almost more than any other. You talk bad about Coke, it's like you've defaced a national icon. John Pemberton was a junkie, who marketed cokaine to the masses. A common peddler. Why don't you see that corporate icon? Just John Pemberton, strung out on kohkaine and laudanum?

Anyone know that Coca Cola battles to fight Obesity? I didn't. I thought they were a company that makes more money than Jesus selling sugar water to kids. Huh. That's a little bit strange, Coca Cola.
www.coca-colacompany.com...
So you look at this thing, and it's just immediately a subliminal advertisement. You got four kids hanging around, and a coke. "HOW CAN WE WORK TOGETHER TO FIGHT OBESITY"? Well, the words on the site would try to kind of, sort of go outside maybe? Unless you want to stay inside and drink coke and play video games. The important part of any diet is coke. Yup. Makes sense.

That's not even the worst part though. First worlders get to sit around getting fat. You know what happens with Coke in the other parts of the planet? Let's take a little journey to India, where the slums are being poisoned by Coke's bottling plant operation. They tried to shut them down, but some people died mysteriously, a fellow by the name of V. Kamson. Now, I bet you he was murdered. I mean, they were putting up some hinderance to the company, so, why not, eh? Pay off the right people, India is corrupt, and the coroner doesn't protest too much if you pay the right price.

Coca Cola is evil. I drink it occasionally, I'm a hypocrite. But it's everywhere. You go into any store on the planet, and there's a good chance they'll have it. Almost total global saturation. Creepy if you think about it.

Personally this is one of my favorites of their propaganda videos

For some reason it makes me smile every time

If you don't want a free Coke, don't hug the machine.

Pay your 75¢ and be on your way.

But what ever you do, don't buy a Coke and then call the company evil.

Tis a bit counter-productive, wouldn't you agree?

That's kind of a cute idea, actually.

I doubt it's brainwashing. If they had the same thing for RC Cola or a different brand, I'd walk past and smile but not hug because I don't care for the taste of that soda. If they had one of those for coffee, the crowds to hug it would be enormous... and as for a machine with chai tea, they'd have to pry me away from that!

Is it worse than any other sort of "feel good" advertising? I don't think so.

And I really kinda like the concept. The world needs more hugs. I think the world does NOT need more games full of shooting and scantily clad girls.

Your mileage may vary.

(yes, I'm a tree-hugging hippie... and proud of it.)

reply to post by muse7


Oh! Never saw those!

Thanks for sharing something grin-worthy!

Originally posted by FugitiveSoul
If you don't want a free Coke, don't hug the machine.

Pay your 75¢ and be on your way.

But what ever you do, don't buy a Coke and then call the company evil.

Tis a bit counter-productive, wouldn't you agree?

Maybe he works for Pepsi?

I don't much like Coke anyway myself. But I hear Pepsi is evil too! Isnt there any sugarwater that is not evil!

Don't get me started on this guy...

OH YEAH!

reply to post by Indellkoffer


If you're a hippie, you shouldn't endorse coke. Their human rights records are atrocious. If they didn't have the track record and history they do, this sort of thing might be cute. Unfortunately, they have left blood and death in many of the nations they have set up bottling plants in. They murder the union leaders and their families. And then they put out a machine that gives out free cokes for hugs? I find that as some sort of Orwellian nightmare.

Hello op, so you realize Coca-Cola is bad for you, yet you still drink it.


Would you agree different substances effect different people, well...differently?


Your soda still uses coc aine....I have no idea why people think that coc aine was removed from the manufacturing process. Here is some very ancient informative news for you and others.

www.nytimes.com...

''Ingredients from the coca leaf are used, but there is no coc aine in it and it is all tightly overseen by regulatory authorities.''

Still uses coc aine albeit non-narcotic which would mean no dopamine reuptake function and we can safely argue that different substances have various effects.

Besides producing the coca flavoring agent for Coca-Cola, Stepan extracts coc aine from the coca leaves, which it sells to Mallinckrodt Inc., a St. Louis pharmaceutical manufacturer that is the only company in the United States licensed to purify the product for medicinal use.

This is interesting, only 1 company so we should be able to safely regulate one single beverage and calculate it's future growth while adjusting to popularity and population.

During the 1980's, imports of coca by Stepan have ranged from 56 metric tons to 588 metric tons a year, according to figures from the Drug Enforcement Administration.

The 1980's when the heavy hand of the law came down with harsh penalties and here is Coca-Cola doing their part to introduce 10x the amount of pure coc aine into America.

Dr. Plowman, a botanist and taxonomist who spent years researching coca in Peru, said he had known people in that country who were responsible for buying coca for Coca-Cola and for doing agronomic research for the company. ''But it was always through intermediaries,'' he said. ''Two or three steps removed.'' Bales of coca destined for Stepan and, ultimately, for Coca-Cola are shipped to the Maywood plant through ports in New York and New Jersey, Mr. O'Brien said. Each shipment carries its own import permit, also issued by the D.E.A.

You would think this process to be counter intuitive, purposefully wrapping a dog's tail in bacon just to "trick it" into thinking it's doing something other than chasing it's own tail.

Welcome to how fake our economy actually is.....we've made up our own problems just to make solutions that appear profitable when in actuality it's nothing but a sham.

while i dislike advertisements that i cant ignore (like TV) I dislike the social engineering behind marketing compains, i dislike the studys into behavior that create more ways to get to you and sell you stuff without you noticing.

at least this one i can just ignore as usual.

hug the machine for some fizzy sugar water? no thanks i will stick to this free water fountain and keep my soul.

reply to post by abeverage

Maybe he works for Pepsi?

I don't much like Coke anyway myself. But I hear Pepsi is evil too! Isnt there any sugarwater that is not evil!

I'm a bit of a tea man myself.

Agree. It is not just Coca Cola that is evil. Pepsi, the lot of them are hawking things to make people fat and unhealthy.

Originally posted by FugitiveSoul
If you don't want a free Coke, don't hug the machine.

Pay your 75¢ and be on your way.

WTF!
75 cents?
A coke out of some machine around here is $1.50 !
Sometimes more! Wow are we getting ripped.

Seems like some freaky subliminal conditioning to me. Which coke drinker wouldn't hug the big old cold machine for more free coke?! (cept maybe the truly socially awkward ones...) And what does this tell us underneath the murky surface of our fragile minds? Perhaps to enhance our love and acceptance for the brand and maybe for the machine - show affection to us and our mechanics and we'll give you your fix for free!

I think these stunts are more than just PR, I think they're tapping into something deeper within us. Thing is these big boy companies have been doing the subliminal marketing business as long as the knowledge to do so's been around, and i find it hard to imagine anything they throw out there is just some cutesy gimmick. They're way too smart for that.

I can also happily say I don't drink coke or diet coke, or even pepsi for that matter. I've not bought any of their crap for at least two and half years, and the funny thing is, I don't crave the stuff one bit. My body's found it's sugar and caffeine sources elsewhere and with a bit of conscious coaxing i've got it onto the more ethical healthy stuff and away from the brain-rotting likes of coca cola.

It's a classic example post-modern advertising. (Side note, I think a lot of ATSers would benefit from knowing how this works)

Pretty much every single half-educated human being who actually hugs that vending machine "knows" the whole thing is a painfully obvious "brainwashing" ploy. You ATS users are not the only kinds of people who know this.

This is what people think as they hug the machine: "Joke's on them, I see what they're trying to do, but I'm going to pretend i.e. "play the role" of being stupidly brainwashed by this company and hug the machine and get a free coke!" They might even laugh at Coca Cola company for how obvious and stupid it's marketing campaign is, or they might find it "cute", either way, they think of themselves as seeing ABOVE what Coca Cola is doing.

Really, what's happened is that cocoa cola has manipulated you into self-congratulating yourself on outsmarting them.

It wasn't their ad that motivated you to hug the machine, it was your belief that you could do so without complying to their rules, looking "past "it.

And in making you think that way, you pick up the coke thinking you weren't manipulated to do so, that you did so out of "Free independent will" rather than brainwashing. This "drinking coke w/independent thinking" becomes the selling point.

With culture being so self-aware and cynical of how advertising works nowadays (you really think they're stuck in the 50's mode of advertising?) the game is now to see how many steps of "awareness" the comapny can be ahead of the person who likes to think he is ahead of the companies.

Unfortunately nobody even knows what "post modernism" really means (at least not in this way) because it's the sort of thing that's contained to post-80's literature (and who cares about that these days, right?) But this is stuff all "good" advertising companies do now.

reply to post by LoveFurther

Though I mostly agree with what you're pointing out here (and you've definitely given me food for thought), and could think of many people this would apply to I can also think of many who this doesn't.

A lot of the elderly generation I've met still aren't all that too clued up on advertising, and even more of the younger generation seem pretty oblivious even with the facts put to them. I've younger siblings who jump on the chance of half price pop not seeing (and more importantly, not wanting to see) how they're becoming addicted to the drink and will then turn to that drink in other places where it's not on offer.

I think a similar ploy could be at work here and kids will just see it as a bit of fun for free pop, when underlying it they're being turned to accepting and relying on the brand. When they don't get it for free and decide to buy some pop they'll go buy a coke without thinking twice about it, or worse they'll think twice but the hook has gauged itself so deep they'll do it anyway.

Being older and half educated, people seem to control their oral fixations a bit better, but children haven't quite acquired that just yet and will happily buy into it all whilst their parents go along with it for their own multitude of reasons and dysfunctions.

Seems that unless people are highly aware of their internal functioning the joke's always going to be on them.

reply to post by Grifter42

reply to post by Grifter42


Coke is marketed under an "archetype" called the Innocent.

Link

And now coke is running ads on being healthy,.
Coke, and health in the same commercial?
thats a true oxymoron

Originally posted by melancholiflower
reply to post by LoveFurther

 

Though I mostly agree with what you're pointing out here (and you've definitely given me food for thought), and could think of many people this would apply to I can also think of many who this doesn't.

A lot of the elderly generation I've met still aren't all that too clued up on advertising, and even more of the younger generation seem pretty oblivious even with the facts put to them. I've younger siblings who jump on the chance of half price pop not seeing (and more importantly, not wanting to see) how they're becoming addicted to the drink and will then turn to that drink in other places where it's not on offer.

I think a similar ploy could be at work here and kids will just see it as a bit of fun for free pop, when underlying it they're being turned to accepting and relying on the brand. When they don't get it for free and decide to buy some pop they'll go buy a coke without thinking twice about it, or worse they'll think twice but the hook has gauged itself so deep they'll do it anyway.

Being older and half educated, people seem to control their oral fixations a bit better, but children haven't quite acquired that just yet and will happily buy into it all whilst their parents go along with it for their own multitude of reasons and dysfunctions.

Seems that unless people are highly aware of their internal functioning the joke's always going to be on them.

Yeah, I felt like I should have mentioned kids, because that of course is a bit different. And what I said won't apply so much to those ATS members who just outright don't buy the stuff, but it does to, say, people my age, advertisement-cynical adults, etc.

I learned this from David Foster Wallace's essay on Television actually, if you want to get your brain mulling over a bit more, definitely seek that out.

reply to post by LoveFurther


Aye I’ll make a note of that, sounds right up my snicket, thank you for the info