Ad Age takes a critical eye to Coca-Cola’s revisionist nomenclature. The Atlanta-based conglomerate no longer uses the word “carbonated” to describe its best-selling brands. In it’s place is the word, “sparkling.”
The beverage giant appears to be trying to reframe the way carbonated-soft drinks — maligned for empty calories and lost share to alternative drinks — are perceived by the financial community and consumers.
By co-opting a term traditionally used to describe mineral waters, Coke seems to be adopting an eye-rolling marketing euphemism on the order of “pre-owned” for used cars and “active adult” for seniors.
“It’s about the fear that the whole soft-drink industry has become stereotyped as those people who make us fat,” said John Greening, associate professor of advertising at Northwestern University’s Medill Integrated Marketing Communications school.
How quickly they forget ‘New’ Coke.