Mecca, Mecca, no Coke, Mecca
: Ad Age has some distasteful quotes from the head of Mecca Cola, the anti-American drink, using war as a marketing ploy:
Mecca-Cola, a soft drink which launched in France last November, scored a recent public relations coup by dubbing itself sponsor of the 1 million-strong peace march in London on Feb. 15. Marchers were handed 36,000 bottles of the cola and 10,000 t-shirts with the Mecca-Cola logo and the message “Stop the War” and “Not in my Name.”
In a stunt visible to those watching the demonstration on TV in London, a vehicle topped with a 20-foot-high Mecca-Cola can pulled a trailer with an outdoor board saying “All human beings are born free and equal … and should think before they drink.”
The stunt earned Mecca-Cola this reference in London’s Sunday Times: “The drink now seen as politically preferable to Pepsi or Coke.”
“I might come to advertising in a year or two, but right now Mr. Bush is making our advertising with all his aggression and his war logic,” said Tawfik Mathlouthi, Mecca-Cola’s founder.
