Petty Betty
{{first_name}}, what hill are you willing to die on?
There's always a few topics that people seem to take one stance on and are unable to see any other viewpoints. For some people it's "aliens are real" or "JFK and the magic bullet" but for me, I'm a little more cynical. The petty hill that I'm willing to die on is that within my lifetime, Coca-Cola will go out of business. Yes, you heard me right.
Over the years, Coca-Cola has made a slew of bad business decisions that have allowed Pepsi to establish themselves as the true titan of food and beverage. From not branching out into food products like their competitor, to passing on the ability to purchase energy drink phenomenon Gatorade and overpaying for BodyArmor to compensate for Powerade's struggles, to tinkering with the "secret recipe", Coca-Cola is struggling to maintain the foothold on the beverage industry that it once had. Coca-Cola is also the single biggest plastic polluter in the world, and they've failed time and time again to challenge Pepsi's Mountain Dew. And the less said about Dasani, clearly Atlanta tap water, the better.
People are drinking less soda than ever before, as more and more Americans make health-conscious beverage decisions. Arguably, most people only drink Coke products when mixing with alcohol, or their acquisitions VitaminWater or Topo Chico. And since they've chosen not to add any non-beverage items to their portfolio I have a really hard time seeing this company lasting another fifty years. The only real path I see for Coca-Cola is to become a company that exists to pay out pensions, similar to what General Electric has become.
{{first_name}}, do you prefer Coca-Cola or Pepsi? Take a moment to complete this poll as I'm doing a bit of market research. And what petty hill are you willing to die on?
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