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Rich People Prefer Coke
By
Garth Johnston
Published Jun 3, 2011
Modified Jun 3, 2011
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By
Garth Johnston
Published Jun 3, 2011
Modified Jun 3, 2011
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Poor Pepsi. The giant New York-based soda company may be increasingly looking out for our best interests, or saying it is, but its flagship product has been surpassed by Diet Coke and apparently the "super-rich" don't like it. At least that is what Johnson and Johnson heir and professional Richy Rich Jamie Johnson writes in Vanity Fair.
Johnson says that outside of big cities "Affluent devotees of the original cola like its history, its pedigree, and its aesthetics—especially the quintessentially American drink’s glass-bottle version. It’s part taste, part snobbery: rich people genuinely believe the cane-sugar Coke in bottles, often made in Mexico, is more delectable and satisfying than the U.S.’s corn-syrup version in the cans." Ah, so that is why David Chang was charging $5 a bottle for the stuff. Meanwhile, the wealthy apparently prefer to drink Diet Coke when in town.
Johnson doesn't offer any unified reason why Coke is cooler for the wealthy, but he does offer a few amusing anecdotes on the topic:
What isn’t so clearly defined is the origin of the bias against Pepsi. The rich don’t seem to like it, but when I asked people why, I received wildly varying explanations for its second-class status. One guy said it’s because Pepsi implies pedestrian Midwestern tastes (even though the drink hails from upstate New York). Another said he didn’t know why Pepsi is considered déclassé, but then confidently observed that top Pepsi executives themselves feel that it is. They don’t even want to suffer the embarrassment of ordering it in front of their well-to-do friends. Finally, another fellow explained that he felt the story of the South American billionaires, the Cisneros family, highlighted the point best. This powerful clan had the largest Pepsi bottling plant in Venezuela for years, and with it an overwhelming competitive edge in the regional market. But in a moment, they switched allegiances, privately signed a deal to bottle Coke, and knocked Pepsi, the resulting stepchild, entirely out of the market. In terms of reputation, he insinuated, it’s Coke that always seems to have the upper hand.
But maybe the answer lies in the fact that the blue bloods Johnson mingles with are from relatively older money. Pepsi is, after all, the choice of the new generation.
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diet coke
jamie johnson
pepsi
rich people
Garth Johnston
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