More than just a soft drink

• Source: The Global Times
• [20:12 May 06 2009]
• Comments

By Peng Yining

Migrant workers walk past a Coca-Cola promotional vehicle in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, in this file photo from 2006. Photo: CFP

When 18-year-old Xue Xiao was pulled from the rubble of his collapsed school on May 15, few people could have predicted what he was thinking. But after spending 80 hours trapped without food or water, the young man’s thoughts were crystal clear.

When asked by a rescuer if there was anything he wanted, he replied, “I want a Coke. Iced, please.”

Everyone roared with laughter. “Coke Boy,” as he came to be known in the press, had shattered the ice surrounding the long and tense rescue operation.

On May 27, Xue explained to the Guangzhou Daily that he was “so anxious and thirsty in the darkness” that the only thing he could think about was having a cold drink, which to him meant an iced Coke.

The world’s most popular soda arrived in China in the 1920s and the country is now the brand’s fourth-largest market with sales of about 31 billion bottles a year, according to the firm’s own figures.

Despite its popularity, when Coke attempted to buy Huiyuan, China’s most successful fruit juice maker, people protested. In a survey conducted by Sina.com, almost 79 percent of the 550,000 polled said they were against the deal, while 78 percent said it was a threat to domestic brands.

“The power of transnational marketing has brought Chinese people into contact with foreign ideas and given them a world view,” Chen Gang, deputy director of School of Journalism and Communication at Peking University, said.

“It’s amazing to see how people naturally accept and admire foreign brands, but then fear them if they become a threat to the national interest.”

Liu Xin, a 26-year-old computer programmer from Beijing, said he had his first Coke in the 1990s, when a bottle cost 1.5 yuan (20 cents), about three times the price of locally made soft drinks.

“It soon became a fantastic and luxurious treat,” he said. “Staring at the sweet brown liquid flowing from the glass bottle gave me great pleasure.”

But even Liu said he voted against the Huiyuan deal.

“I like Coke, but selling our brands to foreign firms makes me uncomfortable,” he told the Global Times.

“As a customer, I choose what I like; as a Chinese I don’t want domestic companies to lose out to international competition.”