Thanksgiving 2011.  My Mother asks  if we have any Coke.  I can’t do justice to just the way she phrased it, but  to paraphrase, it went something like….”And not any of that diet crap”…  So, my wife proudly retrieves a brand new can of Coca-Cola in the special can that helps the Polar Bears.  Everyone loves polar bears–White, furry, look great in a Santa hat.  The problem is, the special polar bear Coke can looks just like, you guess it, a Diet Coke.  Granted, one is white and one is silver, but at a glance, they look identical.   No one at Coke thought this could be an issue?  Where is my Jolly 1930’s Santa Claus can?  Global warming has really become inconvenient when they take away my red holiday cans!

As everyone discussed (argued) about the validity of the white can, I cleared my throat and gave my famous speech on why this would fail.  Consequently,  it’s the same speech I gave my sales team when Netflix went temporarily insane and tried to rebrand  to the name “Quickster”.  The take away from my loud proclamations was that Coke would drop this new can by Christmas.

So as I awoke this morning my Yahoo news hit me with the big news—http://finance.yahoo.com/news/coca-cola-cans-going-back-221405690.html

America is confused by the white Coke can–It looks too much like a Diet Coke–It will be pulled from the shelves ahead of the time.  Some folks even said it tastes different! (Bread does taste better to me when it is cut diagonal!)

Now, some conspiracy theorists may say this was done to just drum up publicity—That I’m talking about Coke way more because of this stunt…Just like “New” Coke.  Maybe, but maybe not.  Coca-Cola is one of the biggest brands in the world–They have  the resources to market test better than any other company–So what went wrong?  My nine year old daughter thought the can looked like a Diet Coke, but Coca-Cola didn’t anticipate this?  Something’s  fishy.  (Don’t polar bear love fish?..hmmm)

So you decide–Are we talking about Polar Bears  and Coke more because of the campaign?  Will more money find its way to Atlanta and Antarctica because of the controversy?   Some of the best advertising campaigns don’t seem like advertising at all–The point is to make people talk, although it didn’t work for Netflix–That was just a major miscalculation–But then again, Netflix is no Coke.

Either way,  Al Gore has now switched from Pepsi to Coke–All is right with the world.