Yes We Can Can: The Coca Cola Drug Wars

In a part of the world where U.S. pop-culture bleeds into daily life, it’s the advertisers who know what’s best for Latin Americans. Over the past year we’ve seen Netflix bring telenovelas to their South American market. Xbox has opened a plant in Brazil. And now, according to a recent Yale study, Coca-Cola has significantly shifted it’s advertising focus to impressionable Mexican children. Knowing how unhealthy soft-drinks are, and knowing this generation might be the first to live shorter because of diabetes and other maladies caused by poor diet, Coca-Cola might come off looking like opportunistic corporate demon. But I think it’s all in how you look at it.

Right now we’re facing a massive drug war occurring in Mexico. Presumably, these drug traffickers are earning decent wages, but are these people getting health insurance benefits that allow them to maintain proper health while being shot at? Probably not. Drug wars cause thousands of deaths every year, but that number pales in comparison to the number of people who die at the hands of malnutrition. And this lack of drug-lord healthcare is definitely the Achilles heel Coca-Cola can exploit to gain good South American PR.

So while I’m not saying I agree with Coca-Cola’s marketing to Mexican children, I am saying certainly there are Mexican kids attracted to sugar water that will eventually grow up to sell drugs. If Coca-Cola can figure out their profile, then they can target their marketing towards these evil future drug-lords. Then you’ll ensure the next generation of drug-kingpins will definitely suffer from obesity and adult diabetes. How easy will it then be to find and arrest these girth-some lard-lords?

So, Coca-Cola, you won the Cola Wars back in the 1980’s, and now you’re in a position to win the Drug War too. Find out who these evil children are and fill their bellies with syrupy goodness that will harden their arteries and confine them to pimped-out wheel chairs. I salute you, Coca-Cola. Stay tuned till next time, when I argue why Marlboro’s should be marketed towards children who collect dead animals.