Zero the Hero
I’m confused. No, it’s not over an engineering equation, or an undecipherable female, this time it’s a global megacorporation. I think I’m part of a growing community of people who wonder about the genesis of Coke Zero. Apparently it started off with a rather controversial marketing campaign, with many sidewalk chalkings and such suggesting theZeroMovement as a subversive counter-culture revolution.
Then they got busted.
So it seems Coke had to quicken up the production schedule and get Coke Zero on shelves double-time. But in my mind the question still remains. WHY? If I want Coke without sugar I’d drink Diet Coke. If I want Coke that actually tastes like Coke, I’ll drink Coke…so where does the market share for Coke Zero come from? And if indeed Coke Zero tastes more like Coke than Diet Coke, then why the continued market share for Diet Coke? It just doesn’t make much sense to me. Especially as the only differences between them seem to be a chemical called acesulfame potassium, an artificial sweetener. Now they both contain the “possibly” brain tumour-causing Phenylalanine in the aspartame that they use as an artificial sweetener, so its not like there is a huge benefit from the lack of sugar anyway.
So again, I end my post with a question…. why?
June 2nd, 2006 at 12:05 am
We talked about this, but I felt I’d throw my opinion in the public domain.
We already have;
Coke (with lots of sugar)
Diet coke (with zero sugar)
And if you go to some places, you can probably still dig up some lemon diet coke, and vanilla coke, and those weird quasi vanilla cokes, etc.
On the other side, we have
Pepsi (with lots of sugar)
Pepsi max (with no sugar)
LAice Cola
AC (Australia’s Choice) cola - 80c from vending machines outside kMart.
etc.
Clearly we have no shortage of colas on the marketplace, and these are merely the ones that are non alcoholic. If you want really good tasting cola buy a can of Bulleit Burbon - 9%. Cola like no other, and the burbon is good too.
Back to my point though, it seems that the aristocracy at a certain cola company may have sensed that the market thought that their diet product had not zero sugar, but a little sugar.
Hence the perceived need for a cola with zero sugar.
However, it was pressed (I know - I was told to sell it) at a mainly male audience, as the diet product has a fair share of the female market. This male audience enjoys their cola how it is, so why mess with the flavour?
They probably should have just had a marketing campaign explaining that the diet product had no sugar in it. KISS (Keep it simple stupid).
We don’t need another coke with no sugar that doesn’t taste like coke. That’s what diet coke is for.
The decision must have been made by art students or something hehe.
`SST
June 2nd, 2006 at 10:21 pm
as my first addition to will’s lovely website i’d like to put in my two cents on this one, ’cause it’s actually something i have something to say about…
apparently there’s a chemical coke zero doesn’t have that diet coke does that is cancer causing. not that i know much about such things but i do know that my friend who’s at risk of prostate cancer isn’t allowed to have diet coke but is allowed zero.
ask me, they all taste like crap.
ps. if the decision had been made by arts students there’d be a foucaldian analysis of the historiographic metafictional aspects of the kafkaesque elements of coke in 21st century poststructuralism on the label. so i don’t think that theory holds up.
June 3rd, 2006 at 10:39 pm
Nobody needs to do an analysis of the kafkaesque elements of coke in ANY century, let alone put it on the label. That would be like studying the reason dzdz(bar)F=0 where F is an analytic function (one that when expressed in terms of (z,z(bar)) turns out to be a function of z only). You dont need to do it because it’s widely accepted.
Instead of that, we can all move on and do something useful.
The eng/science/law/commerce/education/architecture/property and construction students can anyway.
`SST
*This post is meant to be purely informative (hah)
June 4th, 2006 at 1:19 am
ouch
June 4th, 2006 at 6:39 am
law? bah.
but as an history student i could trace the importance of coke in twentieth century modernisation - particularly in france - and in the westernisation of eastern europe in the years both immediately preceeding and certainly following the fall of the berlin wall in 1989.
is like blue jeans. (which were v popular with student revolutionaries in poland in 1968)
i have never blogged before. is this what it’s about? blurting out random thoughts, believing own (rather uninformed) opinions. i like it.
June 4th, 2006 at 3:37 pm
That is indeed what blogging is about, an excuse to impose one’s oft-unfounded beliefs and opinions on other unsuspecting souls.
Ain’t it grand?
June 4th, 2006 at 8:22 pm
will will will. what is this? you need photos of yourself on here, so that people who havent seen you in a bit can see how big your hair has grown.
where you at now? long long time no see.
June 4th, 2006 at 8:30 pm
Hah, hey sarm,
Unfortunately I’ve recently cut my hair, so its back to normal now. Other people in Melbourne may be able to tell you how big it was, but alack ’tis mostly gone. If only there were a handy google map integrated into this site so you could see where I am….
Oh, wait a sec, there is one! Try the map page fool!
What’s doin in your life?
June 6th, 2006 at 8:55 pm
post again already!!!
who but you will can provide a witty distraction from the mindful toil of an insurmountable swot vac punctuated with rude glimpses into what people call human contact…?
Blah… Arts students have it so easy… i mean for them a d is just a d, not a dae doe or differential and lets not start on the rest of the alphabet.
June 6th, 2006 at 11:12 pm
Indeed, the rest of the alphabet only gets more confusing, especially when you start resorting to the greek alphabet!
I don’t know if I’d say it is witty prose, but I’m glad to provide (somewhat) relief from such fascinating subjects as Thermodynamics and Stress Analysis.
God how I despise exams!!
June 7th, 2006 at 12:04 am
“God how I despise exams!”
Except those open book ones - the ones where around 60% of the questions are repeated. We don’t despise those exams, we love them, as they give us extra time to study for the ones we despise.
Like SA, APDE, and I assume TF.
Then there’s that whole other class of exams, including such exams as Processes. ’Nuff said. Heh.
And on the alphabet - here’s my view.
a,b,c - pronumerals, and commonly used for functions.
d - described by young william above
e - our friend the exponent
f - common function
g - see f
h - see g
i - unit vector in the x-direction
j - unit vector in the y-direction
k - unit vector in the z-direction
l - length, also as a capital - L - used for quantised anglular momentum in QM
m - mass
n - number, used for summations etc
o - the origin. Not to be confused with 0, the distance from the origin, at the origin
p - momentum, density if you can’t write in the greek alphabet
q - charge, flow rate, and as Q, an imaginary reaction (which can be set to zero IMMIDIATELY following the differentiation of M for dM, and multiplication with M)
r - position vector
s - parameterisation in 1D
t - time
u - alternate representation of x
v - velocity, alternate representation of y
w - total charge due to a dipole in R2 and R3, also alternate representation of z
x - similar to u
y - similar to v
z - similar to w - commonly mated with its friend z(bar) to form an analytic - anti analytic complex pair.
I’m not going to do the greek alphabet. Upper or lower case. You get the picture.
Good night. Sweet maths dreams.
`SST
June 8th, 2006 at 6:30 am
nerds -
at least what i (we, arts students as a whole) learn makes for interesting convo.
and while you may win nobel prizes, cure cancer, or find the answer to some v exciting maths sum, we can discuss things like normal people (and maybe win nobel prizes too).
but you can still join us. drop your rulers, your graphics calculators, leave your tools of boredom behind.
June 8th, 2006 at 3:17 pm
arts? easy?
d is for derrida…i’d like to see you lot makes sense of him.
June 9th, 2006 at 5:09 pm
So you’re saying that this:
“… foucaldian analysis of the historiographic metafictional aspects of the kafkaesque elements of coke in 21st century poststructuralism…"
Makes for more interesting conversation than, say, how a computer monitor works?
June 12th, 2006 at 4:31 pm
yup
June 15th, 2006 at 11:39 am
in arts, if you make something up they call it ground breaking,
in eng, if you make something up you will break as you hit the ground.
May 1st, 2008 at 12:16 am
The reason for launching coke zero into the market even though diet coke existed was that they identified that diet coke was targetted closer to females and males felt odd to purchase the product, therefore they created a product similar to diet coke that was mainly targetted to males in the form of coke zero.