Philosophical Vegan Forum

For awhile now, Coca Cola has been a direct endorsement for rodeos. After learning this I immediately started to boycott their products. After showing my peers some of these videos, they still continue to buy and support coca cola products.

dan1073 wrote:For awhile now, Coca Cola has been a direct endorsement for rodeos. After learning this I immediately started to boycott their products. After showing my peers some of these videos, they still continue to buy and support coca cola products.

I started boycotting it years ago; health reasons, environmental issues and business practices.

I never liked Coca Cola, so no. I'm actually almost never drink soda, far too sweet for my taste.

dan1073 wrote:For awhile now, Coca Cola has been a direct endorsement for rodeos.

What do you mean by endorsement?

Many companies advertise at rodeos in the south; they are large fairs (only a part of them is animal based), and they represent good advertising opportunities in the market.

Modern rodeos are like 90% country music festivals.

I'm not sure that one could consider Coca Cola to be either supporting or condemning animal cruelty. Most companies are amoral, but not immoral. They're just money making machines. Only when a company acts against its best financial interests can it really be considered to be acting in a moral or immoral sense.

That said, Coca Cola is a waste of money. It's best to avoid it because it's unhealthy, rots your teeth, and is basically just absurdly expensive acidic sugar water.

brimstoneSalad wrote:

dan1073 wrote:For awhile now, Coca Cola has been a direct endorsement for rodeos.

What do you mean by endorsement?

Many companies advertise at rodeos in the south; they are large fairs (only a part of them is animal based), and they represent good advertising opportunities in the market.

Modern rodeos are like 90% country music festivals.

I'm not sure that one could consider Coca Cola to be either supporting or condemning animal cruelty. Most companies are amoral, but not immoral. They're just money making machines. Only when a company acts against its best financial interests can it really be considered to be acting in a moral or immoral sense.

That said, Coca Cola is a waste of money. It's best to avoid it because it's unhealthy, rots your teeth, and is basically just absurdly expensive acidic sugar water.

This is what I mean by endorsement https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkPrLm1aUJA

dan1073 wrote: This is what I mean by endorsement https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkPrLm1aUJA

That's a pretty nasty rodeo. I can see why: it's in Cheyenne, WY - the podunk little capital of the least populated state in the USA (and second only to Alaska as having the lowest population density).

The people in Wyoming are miners and farmers- they don't know much beyond coal and beef, and there's only one four year university in the entire state. They clearly don't care much for animal welfare there, and that's not surprising, since most of their state's economy is exploiting the environment and animals. They kill animals for a living; they think nothing of killing a few more for fun.

But here's the rub: Coca Cola just wants cheap advertising at the biggest event in Wyoming (seriously, it draws attendance of 200,000 in a state with a total population of less than 600,000)- since that rodeo is pretty much the only game in town, Coca Cola doesn't have a lot of comparable advertising options. The rodeo has the power in this situation, and Coca Cola can only leverage so much pressure (even if they did care).

Coca Cola happily ran labor camp factories in Nazi Germany after all. Free slave labor, and advertising support from the Third Reich? Yes please, we'll happily sponsor Hitler if it will make us money! ALL they care about is the bottom line. They have made this historically very clear. Companies are not human beings- they don't have consciences to appeal to. All they do is follow the money.

With a boycott, it only works if the company knows that their advertising is generating more bad publicity than good, and thus costing them money.

That means exposing more than 200,000 receptive people to the message that Coca Cola is a bad company because it supports that kind of cruelty.
And crucially- for Coca Cola to know that's happening. People who do drink coke need to stop, and write into Coca Cola explaining to them why. Write in, call in, visit the headquarters. And they need to do it by the thousands, or it won't matter.

Coca Cola needs to know they're losing millions of dollars of this- and the moment they do, they'll pull the advertising.
It's just a numbers game, but if you can't beat the positive publicity of such a big event, Coke won't change its position.

Boycotting an amoral company to damage an adversary they advertise with, when you don't have the numbers to beat the publicity your enemy is offering, is going to be a waste of time and effort.

And unfortunately for vegans... most of us are health conscious enough to not drink Coke to begin with, so Coke really doesn't care what we think.
Coke will never have my support, no matter what they do, because their product is poison- and they know this (that we don't support them).
They favor their unhealthy, conservative, mid-western, middle class, socially apathetic, customers who chug their product by the liter- customers who for the most part support animal cruelty wholeheartedly.


Don't get me wrong- I totally respect the effort those activists are going to, and I hope they succeed. But I don't think boycotting Coca Cola is a productive way forward on this. There are a lot more rodeo fans than there are animal welfare activists, and if we play by the numbers, it's a serious long shot.

Addressing the country music stars (who are the main attraction at rodeos) on the other hand...

http://www.sharkonline.org/index.php/an ... elebrities

That IS a good idea. These people are human beings, mostly, and they're more likely to be swayed by criticism and moral arguments than a faceless amoral corporation. Some of them are BAD people who won't care, but most of them are people- some of them even otherwise fairly good people.

And if you go through Nashville, which a tight nit music community that's actually fairly progressive relative to their audiences, you may be able to generate enough pressure to make some changes.

If the rodeos start losing their music stars, they won't be able to draw in people any more; they'll cut the cruel animal shows before they they cut the music.

As activists, we have to make the most out of our resources. We can't go head to head with these forces of animal cruelty- we have to be smart about it, since we have neither the numbers nor the resources they do.

I just have to put this out here, coca cola is not vegan it contains honey!

PrincessPeach wrote:I just have to put this out here, coca cola is not vegan it contains honey!

I didn't know that. But then, I don't drink it, so I'm not sure if I've ever read the nutrition info.

Do they hide it in "natural flavors"? Or is it listed right out there?

I don't think they put it on the labels anymore probably because of the vegan movement, just two years ago they did. Now they can just some it up as natural flavors.

PrincessPeach wrote:I don't think they put it on the labels anymore probably because of the vegan movement, just two years ago they did. Now they can just some it up as natural flavors.

Can you provide a source for the claim that coca cola uses honey? I would imagine that cane sugar is a much cheaper solution for the company.