Coming Together (advertisement)
Coming Together is a 2minute ad created and distributed by the CocaCola Company and launched on the night of January 14, 2013 on several cable networks.
According to USA Todays Nanci Hellmich, Critics say the company is doing damage control to combat the widespread belief that sugary beverages contribute to obesity. Anna Lappe was quoted in the Guardian as saying, This feelgood PR blitz is just another example of the company trying to protect brand goodwill amidst growing public concern about its most profitable products sodas. On her blog, Food Politics, Marion Nestle wrote, The ad is an astonishing act of chutzpah, explainable only as an act of desperation to do something about the companys declining sales in the U.S. and elsewhere. Additionally, public health lawyer Michele Simon wrote, They are downplaying the serious health effects of drinking too much soda and making it sound like balancing soda consumption with exercise is the only issue, when there are plenty of other reasons not to consume too much of these kinds of products. She also ...dismissed the ads as pure public relations and noted that the industry faced an onslaught of public health efforts to curb consumption of sugary sodas, like efforts around the country to impose taxes on highsugar drinks and Mayor Michael Bloombergs move to restrict the sizes of sodas sold in movie theaters and other spots in New York City. In the aforementioned blog post, Professor Nestle asserted that If Coke really wanted to help prevent obesity, it would STOPWith regard to the ads assertion that all calories count, no matter where they come from, critics have pointed out that calories from soda are entirely empty calories from added sugar and contain no nutritional value. This led The Atlantics Ruth Faden to declare that this specific assertion was inappropriately misleading, as well as claiming that there is considerable research linking sugary drinks to obesity. It was also highlighted in a story by the Medill School of Journalism, which quoted Brenda Murray, a bariatric dietitian, who said, Theyre saying a calorie is just a calorie. But its not the
Source: Wikipedia