Talk:The Coca-Cola Company

Real weak on history of the company. No mention of having owned Columbia Pictures???ň

Expansion Template

I added a Req. for Expansion template. This article is woefully lacking as far as the history of the company. Feco 22:27, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

Also maybe the facts need to be checked after the recent things that happened to wikipedia the past few weeks, don't want to say anyone else had assassinated people when they didn't. 220.233.48.200 15:46, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Bad Link

• The URI to the copyright case at guerrillanews.com gives a 404. Can someone take a decision either to remove the link or to update it? google.com caches it like this -- Drange_net, 2005-05-04

History of Coke, the product

I believe most if not the whole of The Coca-Cola Company History should be sent back to Coca-Cola, the product article. Seems to me the section was mainly written as history of the product, and the original Coca-Cola article is now "bare" without its product history.

I think if the intent is really to split content about the company versus content about the product, it should be done by first duplicating the relevant part to the company article. Not by wholesale chopping of important portion from the original article, rendering Coca-Cola the product article very "bare", and not living up to its WP:FA status. -- sabre23t 05:44, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)

In reading the discussion page -- there was a concerted discussion about the need to separate the company from the drink. I take your suggestion about duplicating with respect. Care to help me out? I started chopping because I noticed the original guy (John_____k) was chopping out parts from the original article, but left it incomplete. I followed his lead so as not to have a partially-complete history section. Guppy

No prob, Guppy. I'll give a hand on the Coca-Cola article a bit later, after your major edits has settled down. ;-) -- sabre23t 06:53, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I just made the same comment on Talk:Coca-Cola — that moving the history section en masse was too blunt an approach. It will take some rewriting to separate into coherent histories for the company and the product. Autiger 06:05, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Refactoring out unnecessary duplicates with Coca-Cola

I think the Coca-Cola article is now cleared out of unnecessary Coca-Cola company contents, except for leader/pointer paragraphs here. Perhaps some of us would like to similarly clear this The Coca-Cola Company article from unnecessary Coca-Cola products contents? ;-) -- sabre23t 09:28, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Main picture needed for The Coca-Cola Company

I can think of two pictures that would be very appropriate at the top of this article; (i) picture of Coca-Cola World HQ in Atlanta, capturing corporate signboard and building, (ii) picture of collection of major Coca-Cola products that includes Coke, Fanta and Sprite. For now I'm putting this Image:Coca_cola_shop.jpg in Lahore, up there. -- sabre23t 09:55, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I live not far away and this is already on my ToDo list; I had thought the corp HQ would be perfect for this page. Unfortunately, today in Atlanta is overcast so I can't get a good shot. Autiger 18:06, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The new Coca-Cola World HQ photo certainly looks nice, Autiger. Thanks. ;-) For a world flavour an additional photo or two of Coca-Cola HQs in other countries would be nice. I'm putting on my ToDo list, to take a photo of F&N Coca-Cola Malaysia building in Shah Alam, that's not too far away from my home. -- sabre23t 06:38, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Thanks, I was finally able to get time on a nice day. I don't think I can make it any of the other company locations anytime soon, so I'll leave that to you. ;-) Yesterday was sort of a photography day; besides this one, I added pics for a couple of universities too (Auburn University and Georgia Institute of Technology). Getting some good use out of my new Nikon D70. Autiger 17:32, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)

copyright dispute

I had met someone recently who had a passionate stance against purchasing Coca-Cola products primarily on the basis of a particular copyright case regarding an independent marketing consultant named Bob Kolody. I haven't been able to find much information about it on Wikipedia, and was wondering if others were familiar with it, and perhaps feel that it might be worth mentioning it on the criticisms section of the company's entry. Here's a link to one of the more informative sources that I've found so far.

http://www.davidicke.net/newsroom/america/usa/072801b.html

The mention of a legal battle between Coca-Cola and Bob Kolody was first mentioned on Guerilla News Network (www.gnn.tv). A book is set to be released August 15, 2006, titled "Coca-Karma." The book will be published by Disinformation Company with a list price of $8.95.

Introduction

There are many controversies surrounding the company, its products and its trade practices. Coca-Cola has recently been denounced in the UK for weaning young children onto junk food. In India, the corporation has provoked a number of boycotts and protests as a result of its perceived low standards of hygiene and adverse impact on the environment.

Does this have to be in the introduction? The company is not the target of any more or less criticism than any other $100 billion market cap company.--Jerryseinfeld 23:45, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Coke is a very popular target for some reason, just like how Microsoft is the butt of nerd-jokes. The problem is a lot of Coke-haters take this obsession far too seriously. I think that's a decent compromise in exchange for them not turning this and its related articles into a steaming pile of POV crap. Johnleemk | Talk 11:36, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Relation with Coca-Cola article

I think this article needs to be merged with Coca-Cola. Wikiwikifast 21:49, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The Coca-Cola company is a big organization, and does quite a bit that has nothing to do with the actual drink called Coca-Cola. I doubt that a merge is appropriate. Isomorphic 21:53, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

All right, but there is a lot of duplicate information in both articles, e.g., Early Years, New Coke, etc. Information about the Coca-Cola formula should be in the Coca-Cola article, not the company article. The criticism of Coca-Cola should be in the Coca-Cola article, not the company article, because the criticisms are more specific to Coca-Cola as opposed to Sprite (since Coca-Cola the drink is a symbol of America to the rest of the world). Wikiwikifast 22:03, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The criticisms specific to Coke should be there, but I think this article should contain the criticisms in full. Then we summarise them in the main Coca-Cola article, with a link to the criticisms section here. It's not the drink that does this things, it's the company. Johnleemk | Talk 08:56, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

It's not, but people boycott the drink specifically in protest. Wikiwikifast 03:40, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Exactly. Boycotting the drink if it doesn't hurt the company doesn't change anything. These criticisms do not directly reflect badly on Coke; they reflect badly directly on the company that manufactures and markets it. The drink is viewed negatively as a side-effect. If the company and its assets (i.e. manufacturing plants, etc.) ceased to exist, Coke as a stand-alone product would no longer have most of these criticisms applied to it. Johnleemk | Talk 13:21, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Hmm, okay. It's just that the history of the Coca-Cola Company seems more appropriate in the Coca-Cola article, and some of the criticisms are specific to the drink, e.g., the health criticisms in India. In addition, Coca-Cola is more than a soft drink; it's a rich culture, a symbol of America and globalization. Wikiwikifast 19:29, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, I know. Untangling the company and its flagship product can be extremely hard; even more so when they share a common name. I agree that criticisms specific to the drink should be there, but most criticisms really are related to the company, and not the drink (i.e. allegations that the company murders union workers). Johnleemk | Talk 07:42, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Proposal to reunite contents of two articles

I believe that it was wrong to divorce the original Coca Cola article history in August 2004. As it stands, we have positive company history and information on the main Coca-Cola page, and negative history on this page. Therefore, if we meld the two articles, readers will receive a more complete and rich history at one glance. Otherwise, reading one or the other page is duplicative at least, and an act of ommission and an inaccurate portrayal of the company at worst.

I reject Johnleemk's points on one article being about the "drink" and the other about "the company", because the "drink" article currently contains much information about the company and its actions throughout history. As we have found in the article about "the drink", Coca-Cola the drink is synonymous with its brandname, logo. Coca-Cola the company shares this same brandname and logo.

Since the drink is physically and literally a product of the company, it is inseparable from the company itself. The only difference is that Johnleemk (and probably others) thinks that positive history about Coca-Cola is legitimate, and that "criticisms" or negative aspects of Coca-Cola's history is questionable in nature and often, not valid.

The result is that the "Coca Cola Company" page is a ghetto of "controversies" and "criticisms", while the "Coca-Cola" page reads like a page from the company's museum. We need to acknowledge that there is a pro-Coca-Cola perspective, and that Coca-Cola is not simply a bystander but a proactive actor in history.

Like all actors, Coca-Cola has its supporters, detractors, and indifferent observers. A good article will not be afraid to acknowledge a range in perspectives - especially when it is quite clear from the existence of TWO articles that there is a valid and well-documented wealth of history and perspectives.

I propose that we either: 1) reunite the two articles about the Coca-Cola Company ("Coca-Cola" and "The Coca-Cola Company"),

or, at least in fairness to NPOV:

2) completely remove company history, advertising policy, and "new coke" section as it stands in the "Coca-cola" article. -Guppy 12:13, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

If there is a problem with the article's POV fix it. The Coca-Cola article was overflowing with irrelevant company history. Although the company and drink share the same name, the company does produce hundreds of other products, as evidenced by this article. It is not fair to the other products to lump them in with Coca-Cola. After all, they too are produced in the same plants and by the same company that exploit cheap labour and contaminate water supplies. The idea that the company and drink cannot be separated is simply wrong. They are two different entities, and it is clear that one article cannot contain all information on both of them. If you think that there is too much history unrelated to the drink in the Coca-Cola article, remove it. If you think the information on advertising is a bit too much, trim it. And so forth. The solution to this problem is not to throw two separate objects into one article. Eventually they will have to be broken apart again. That's how articles evolve. Johnleemk | Talk 14:28, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

John - If "that's how articles evolve", then there would have been no creation of a separate "Coca Cola Company" article, as occurred in August 2004. As you may recall, there was no creation of this separate article until certain editors (such as yourself) determined that a ghetto of "controversial" issues would need to be a holding pen for negative aspects of Company history. Had you followed your own advice, you would not have wholesale deleted 'controversial' items. My contention is precisely that there are not TWO separate items, but that Coke is both a company AND a drink. Your bias is to separate the two -- my bias is to argue that they are more often than not, one and the same.

In addition, you state that there is 'irrelevant company history" - my contention is that this was not irrelevant content, but valid aspects of the building of the Coke drink and its legend/image/status/popularity as not simply a drink but a cultural and political icon. Therefore, articles can also evolve by merging contents. Guppy 02:26, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

I did not propose the idea; I merely noticed others had proposed it and agreed with them. It makes perfect sense; as you can see below, most people agree that the company and the drink are two separate entities. "Relegating" negative PR issues to this article is a non sequitur because it is like saying that there should be merging of some articles due to the fact that United States does not cover America's covert actions in South America, which affected the lives of thousands if not millions, or that Malaysia and Malaysian New Economic Policy should be merged because Malaysia doesn't cover the aggressive affirmative action policies of the government which disenfranchies thousands of secondary school graduates in Malaysia every year. The only difference is that in this case, both entities have the same name, so the merge briefly sounds plausible. If you think about it, though, merging the two articles is ridiculous. Merging of content is a natural form of article evolution, but merging two articles on two clearly different and separate topics is not. Johnleemk | Talk 12:20, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

"Most people" (as seen "below") is not really a valid statement, given that currently only a few people have even responded. I am not targeting you personally, but you as one of the active editors (with at least some pro-Coke bias) of this discussion page and article. I agree that it might be useful to have two different articles, if both articles are clearly defined. As it stands, the drink article contains much company history that could arguably be contained in an article about the company alone. Meanwhile, negative aspects of the company's actions (i.e., Nazi involvement in WWII) while promoting the drink, were initially deleted from the drink article, and pushed into the company article. (I recently moved it back.)

My main complaint has been in the editing of content such that most items that are critical of Coke are either deleted, shrewdly contested, or relegated to a neglected article. This results in two articles that are poorly defined.

The editorializing of content has been such that most critiques of the company/drink are rendered in the context of "controversial", "suspected", "urban legend" claims. When referring to health claims, worker and environmental issues - because they are not scientifically proven and/or still in contention, the slant has generally been to protect Coke from scrutiny of its role as a leader in its field. As I made my points above - Coke is an actor in history, and its negative effects should be as equally or fairly acknowledged as are its positive accomplishments.

Meanwhile, I've made revisions to the Coca-Cola article, acknowledging that the drink has become a metonymy for the company, and for global political and cultural issues. Guppy 05:31, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

Responses to RfC posting

(note the formatting... copied from VfD... will help tablulate ultimate consensus)

• Do not merge. The corporation is much larger than the drink. The POV problems with each article are not enough of a reason to justify a "bad" merge. With suitable text pointers ("for discussion of the Coca-Cola Company, go here. This article discusses the Coca-Cola Beverage"), users should be able to manage just fine. Someone may have to do heavy editing/moving to restore the integrity of the two articles, but again, that's better than a bad merge. Feco 21:58, 25 May 2005 (UTC)
• As per Feco: Do not merge. A content dispute is no reason to merge the two articles. BlankVerse ∅ 11:48, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
  • After reviewing this, the Coca-Cola article, and some of the numerous related and auxiliary articles, it looks like everything is poorly organized and needs some major restructuring and major cutting-and-pasting between the various articles. I also feel even more strongly now than before that the articles absolutely should not be merged. BlankVerse ∅ 16:32, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
• Do not merge. We've had this same issue at Anheuser-Busch and Budweiser. —Sean κ. + 18:39, 28 May 2005 (UTC)
• Do not merge Holding comanies and their companies/divisions/products are two different things. While often people are not aware that this is the case, an encylopedia should explain this. Also the history of the parts can be very different especially during a buyout. Personally I'd like to see a small article for any stock market traded company even if the only content at the start is the ticker and a list of divisions. Multiple articles allow for cleaner use of categories. Vegaswikian 22:05, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Errata: Dr. Pepper NOT a Coca-Cola product.

The Dr. Pepper brand is NOT a Coca-Cola product in the United States; it is owned by Cadbury-Schweppes. It is a list Cocal-Cola product in other places. I have changed the list of brands to reflect that.

It is manufactured by Coca-Cola under license from Cadbury-Schweppes in some countries, such as here in Ireland and Northern Ireland. --Zilog Jones 20:29, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Bottlers of Coca-Cola (which may or may not be part of the Coca-Cola Corporation), may bottle products licensed by other companies. Not all Coca-Cola bottlers are part of the Coca-Cola Company; for example, in the US and parts of Europe (but not Ireland), Coca-Cola Enterprises bottles Coke products, as well as other products. Despite the similar name, these are different companies. --Jkonrath 18:24, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Removal pending verification

Removed the following sentence regarding murders pending supply verification from a credible primary news source or government agency (not an activist website):

In Colombia, the company was found to be responsible for 179 major human rights violations, including nine murders.

This page continues to be a favorite target of Anti-Coke activists, but Wikipedia is not a platform for corporate slander (unverified allegations). Autiger 19:23, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia is also not a forum for corporate fawning. If I were to continue your line of ad-hominem logic, I would say you are a pro-Coke activist. The point of NPOV actions, I believe, is to neutralize, and not wholesale delete items. I changed "found" to "alleged". [1] Guppy 05:02, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

I moved it here and did not delete entirely pending some sort of proof. I'm just looking for a little fairness and balance. Almost half the prose in this article is criticism of the company including some with little or no balance as to Coca-Cola's position on the subject. I remove to the talk page an unsourced/unverified statement that claims the company committed nine murders and it's corporate fawning? As to it being ad-hominem, despite my context-setting off-hand activist comment, my issue really is that such an inflamatory statement must be verifiable and true, otherwise it is defamatory. The author of a false or misleading statement loses their credibility based on that action. Autiger 06:28, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

'Corporate fawning' was a response to your 'corporate slander' statement. This is another example of when criticism of Coke is perceived as marginal and outlandish. Just because an item is critical of Coke, doesn't mean it is slanderous. There are reasons to see the human rights violations issue as not inflammatory, but legitimate allegations that are being explored in court and in larger society. What I did was change the wording from "found" to "alleged" - an alternative to deleting the entire statement. Another reason to delete the statement might be for efforts to be concise - but that was not your motive.Guppy 06:41, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

Also - if you note my comments above, you'll find that I also find the contents of this page questionable. The history section is barely updated and hard to recognize as separate from the Coca-Cola drink history. Still, removing content would make this article even more bare. If you need more 'positive' Coca-Cola content, please add it yourself. Guppy 06:53, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

Coca-Cola Company Brands

I thought Dr. Pepper was a separate company, and the article on Dr. Pepper gives me that sense too. I thought places that sell Coke or Pepsi products buy the rights to sell Dr. Pepper and 7 Up, and that these drinks aren't really owned by either Pepsi or Coke. Mred64 03:36, Jun 20, 2005 (UTC)

Coca-Cola Rebuttal Page about allegations in Kerala

The rebuttal page do not speak about the allegations made against the company in Kerala. Hence am removing it. If someone wants to keep it, please keep the link somewhere else.

Allegations of deceptive marketing tactics

In some cases criticism of The Coca-Cola Company focus on the product sold, rather than the company itself. A section should probably be added to address this category of criticism.

In the UK, the launch of their Dasani bottled water proved a major embarrassment when they were forced to admit it was essentially repackaged tap water. [2]

Minute-Maid orange juice is made from concentrate, but sold in groceries with the same packaging and in the same aisle as competing brands not made from concentrate like Pepsi-Cola's Tropicana or Florida Natural (unsuprisingly, Tropicana outsells Minute-Maid 7-to-1). Coca-Cola sued Tropicana in 1982 for pointing this out, and won, on the basis that Tropicana is pasteurized and thus not exactly "freshly squeezed" as claimed in their advertising. [3]

Some mention should be made of the recent contamination scare in Belgium, which led to the ouster of CEO Douglas Ivester.

Fazalmajid 01:13, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

bias?

seems like some sentences were added by coke, such as "coke became synonymous with the american way of life after ww2", dont you think?

Should have a picture of a normal can of Coke

Can we have a picture of a normal can of Coke near the top? At the moment, there's only the logo, a Diet Coke can and a picture of the HQ. --Jeremy 00:00, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

I disagree - this is about the company, not Coca Cola, the product.

Boycott

The following text was inserted into a new section "Boycott" and then reverted with the explanation "rv. - info is already in article". While the article does mention boycotts a lot, it does not mention either of the two universities. Not sure if this particular information is important enough, but the idea to dedicate a section to boycotts may have some merit. Common Man 09:35, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

• Due to the accusations, particularly those regarding murders of unionists in Columbia and environmental pollution in India, as of January 2006, several US universities boycott Coca-Cola products, such as the University of Michigan and the New York University.

Proposed deletion of CitationNeeded sentences

In the past month, I've tagged approximately 10 sentences in the Criticisms section as CitationNeeded. I would like to propose that if ctiations are not found in the next 10 days, say by February 14th, that we delete these sentences. And an early Happy Valentines Day to all! ;-)Jvandyke 18:00, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to propose another round of deletions for sentences labeled CitationNeeded. Specifically, I propose that if citations are not found in the next 2 weeks, say by April 1st, that we delete those sentences. And an early April Fools Day to all! ;-) Jvandyke

I'd like to change "Motions in support of the boycott have been passed by the Union of Students in Ireland, which represents the 250,000 students on the island of Ireland" because USI does not include all students in Ireland. I'm not sure exactly what to write though.

Disambiguation of Christian Brothers Link

Hello, I came acros this page when disambiguating links to Christian Brothers. The Christian Brothers mentioned in this page are in fact the Christian Brothers Investment Service, which "was founded in 1981 by the Brothers of the Christian Schools, widely known as the De La Salle Christian Brothers" [4] - and thus could perhaps be pointed at Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools (slightly expanded to mentione the service) or at a new article about this investment service..? My thought is that I should mention the investment service in the existing article and point the link there, but I'd appreciate your thoughts. I'll check back.Politepunk 22:31, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

sugar and high frutose corn syrup in coke

Coke is mostly made with a secreted flavor formula and sweetened with sugar with the exception of the USA where due to the inflated cost of sugar and government subsidized corn High fructose corn syrup has replaced sugar do it much lower cost this was done in a deceitful but smart move in 1985 where they launched new coke which coke knew would fail, but it gave then sufficient time to clear the old sugar coke off the shelf’s before coming out with coke classic which was not classic at all but coke with high fructose corn syrup which coke says tastes the same as sugar but that simply not true or why would coke do such a deceptive switch if it did.

Also look up http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_fructose_corn_syrup and see why it much worse for us then sugar

POV?

"(Notice how Coke's list of praises shorter than its list of critisisms)" Seems an un-needed sentence at the end of sources.

Ingredients

It seems a little strange that the dead lizard is put under ingredients nad there is nothing else there. Should this be changed?Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii 15:57, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

I removed it since it doesn't really count as criticism. --Dodo bird 19:54, 3 May 2006 (UTC).

npov check

read this article and tell me it doesn't sound like the company could have edited it itself to make it sound rosy and fine? anyway, i think POV criticism of this and Coca-Cola articles combined can be found on each talk page. i just don't have time to argue with people about why these two articles are POV. Guppy 13:03, 5 May 2006 (UTC)