September 2, 2001

10:28 AM

Coca Cola vs. H2O: Common dreams republishes documents from CocaCola's website describing their ongoing war against tap water in resturaunts. The bottom line? Tap water doesn't make money for CocaCola, but drinking bottled tap water such as Dasani does.
posted by KirkJobSluder (21 comments total)

Discussed here as well. Not really a double post though, it looks like there has been some new activity.
posted by machaus at 10:35 AM on September 2, 2001

We recently discussed this story here. Just FYI.
posted by jpoulos at 10:35 AM on September 2, 2001

Machaus and I walk on eggshells together. :-)
posted by jpoulos at 10:35 AM on September 2, 2001

Pinch poke, you owe me a Dasani doesn't have a very good ring to it.
posted by machaus at 10:37 AM on September 2, 2001

Ugh. They put "H20" instead of "H2O". This is a common mistake papers do all the time, you'd think they would have a filter that would check for it.

state-of-the- art process called reverse osmosis

State-of-the-art?! I did reverse osmosis in my freshman biology class!
posted by geoff. at 10:38 AM on September 2, 2001

And they have to make a "H2NO kit" to train the waiters in the practice of "suggestive selling?" Here's a bottom line for ya: they're all morons. Maybe this could work in Mexico, where bottled water means life or death, but I've yet to see a restaurant that doesn't offer bottled water of any sort.

"Just water please," says the customer. Then the waiter replies, "A Dasani perhaps? It's 99% effective in reducing lime, iron, and bacteria contaminants." "Just get me some goddamn water."
posted by bloggboy at 10:39 AM on September 2, 2001

bleh. some of us drink tap water because a meal costs so damn much. (grumble, grumble.)

of course, I remember during the big drought of the late 80s/early 90s in so CA, when there was a big push to stop automatically giving people water...because it was being wasted by people who didn't drink it. which made sense to me.

but this is just icky.
posted by epersonae at 10:54 AM on September 2, 2001

Is this the first "sort of double post" where the reason for the re-post is the MeFi discussion on the original story?
posted by holgate at 10:54 AM on September 2, 2001

Does anyone here know Rob Cockerham? I'd love to find out this story progressed from his initial stumbling upon the Coke site. Or perhaps sassone visited Rob's site and posted it here.
posted by machaus at 11:07 AM on September 2, 2001

...find out HOW this story... preview is your friend
posted by machaus at 11:13 AM on September 2, 2001

i have to agree 100% with holgate. I saw this before and said double post and i double the comment and double the good labor day to mefis worldwide.
posted by clavdivs at 12:45 PM on September 2, 2001

You all know what W.C. Fields said about water, right?
posted by fidelity at 1:58 PM on September 2, 2001

Love it. Most posts to this article discuss whether or not this is a legitimate posting....think the issue covered previously, then ignore and move on.
I had not seen previous posting if such there was but on this I am reminded of the time not too long ago when I had gone to a small sandwhich shop and asked for water with me meal. the onwer/waitress said they had this and that in bottles. I said I needed water only for my medication and not as a beveage and would have coffee after my meal but need meds for my heart....boy did she rush me a glass of water!
posted by Postroad at 1:58 PM on September 2, 2001

My issue with soda... it used to be a dollar for a soda in a restaurant. Then it jumped to $1.25. Ok, I could live with that. Then it jumped to $1.49. It's getting a little pricey for something that costs pennis to produce at a standard soda fountain in a restaurant. And we're talking about an extra 2 dollars on the bill for a party of four. Then it jumped again. The most recent prices I have seen are $1.79 at Max & Erma's and $1.89 at J Alexanders. I've paid it sometimes, sometimes I've just been ordering water. Once is breaks the 2 dollar threshold, which might be soon as it currently trends. (Coke prices are higher than gasoline prices.) Water will be the call of the day. 8 bux for a party of four for Cokes when it used to be four, for something that costs pennies to produce. And this is in the midwest. I imagine LA, San Fran, NY, etc. are probably even higher.

And I know they are so full of it. I had one manager I know tell me they were told by corporate to explain that "because of higher consumption of refills..." if questioned. So riddle me this, coca-cola corporation. If a restaurant serves me a 2 dollar coke, with 2 refills, and the cup is 16 ounces; then why can 7/11 sell me a mega-big gulp 64oz soda for around a buck when on sale?
posted by benjh at 2:49 PM on September 2, 2001

benjh: why can a resturant charge close to two dollars? because we'll still pay it.
posted by antimarx at 3:25 PM on September 2, 2001

I like Dasani water - most bottled water tastes roughly the same, after all. I'll readily admit, however, that I prefer Dasani because it has the *prettiest* bottle - cool colors & design, nice shape, etc. "Naya" bottles are too thin and tend to fall over in my cup-holder in the car, and the name "Ozarka" just gives me the creeps, and Evian costs at least 2x as much as others. Dasani rules!

And benjh: your reference to not buying Coke when it breaks $2 a glass? I said the same about cigarettes way back when, only it was, "I'll stop smoking when cigarettes cost $1 a pack." Now I pay an average of $2.40 per pack.

(mmmmmm...self-medication...)
posted by davidmsc at 8:43 PM on September 2, 2001

Do not drink bottled water.
posted by pracowity at 11:46 PM on September 2, 2001

mia culpa, I did run a search for earlier articles on this but failed to make the Olive Garden connection in the title. There probably is a Human-Computer Interface hint there for someone.

However, I did notice that the link to the CocaCola site for the earlier article is now down, so perhaps its not a total loss. But I apologize for the repeat.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 11:59 PM on September 2, 2001

Do not drink bottled water.
Unless you live in Korea (or Indonesia or Mexico or a whole bunch of other places I've roosted) and the alternative is Not Pretty. Of course there's always beer, which is still Not Pretty, but can be a lot more fun.

davidmsc : Count yourself lucky that you're paying $2.40 (I assume in American $$) a pack - when I quit last year smokes were pushing $7 a pack in Sydney (though that's still only about $3.50 US)
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 12:04 AM on September 3, 2001

Just to clarify: 'Common Dreams' republished (very swiftly) this republication of the Coke documents, and copied this copy of the Coke pages.

Common Dreams appears to carry very little content that has not been... liberated from other sites. How progressive.
posted by davidfg at 12:22 AM on September 3, 2001

In case anyone is still wondering, I found the Coke site doing a search on Google for "drive thru pictures" before embarking on my almost-useful drive-thru photo project.
After living in the USA for awhile, I have grown sensitive to marketing-lingo that is so rich with lies as this was. I was mad! I posted a link to my site and tried to get word out among people that I know have a lot of traffic. (cardhouse.com) I wasn't at all surprised that coke took the site down when an uproar started, but I WAS surprised to be contacted by David from the New York Times.
Thanks to Metafilter for rallying the community.
posted by cockeyed at 12:20 PM on September 3, 2001