Diet Coke. Mostly water.

Excellent link at the NYTimes blog Freakonomics on Coke's new ad for Diet Coke: 99 Percent Water. 

Check out the link here.

That ad is oh-so-grist-for-my-mill.

Pepsi has been kicking Coke's proverbial heinie (sp?) over bottled water. Pepsi "gets" that bottled water can be branded and can sell at high prices but that it doesn't need to be PEPSI branded (in fact, better if it's not). Coke dragged its feet for years embracing bottled water because they felt they needed somehow to "Coke" brand anything they sold. 

The difference between the two companies: Coke thinks it controls its brand, and that it is the only one that creates brand equity; Pepsi realizes that brand equity is in the eyes of the beholder. That's you and me, and we want to put quality stuff in our bodies because of (name the top ten trendy reasons, pulled from anti-brand sentiment, natural food obsession, healthy/active self-image, hey-I'm-too-old-to-love-cola, etc.). Note: this is probably a cultural difference between the two companies, driven in part from Coke's long position as number one in the market, and Pepsi's long position as the challenger. The consequences of the cultures: Coke does things like New Coke, and Pepsi continues to erode Coke's marketshare by redefining the terms of engagement and looking for market preferences, not just how to sell more Pepsi.

Now, this article points out something really cool: the shift in what is acceptable advertising, driven by a shift in how people perceive WATER.

NOTE: Yelp shout-out to Chloe F (an elite Yelper), who tipped me off to this article. If you're not on Yelp and you're in the US, check it out.