Coca Cola Love

Who Doesn't Like These Cute Christmas Coke Bottles

I love Coca Cola. I feel an attraction to the Coke image. Why? I don't drink Coke. I am too hard-core about calories to consume sugary soda.   I drink Diet Coke, and Diet Coke isn't really Coke.

I think that Coke benefits from a half century of outstanding ads and image making. Who does not like the Coke bottles at left?

I know I love Coke because I read "Neural Correlates of Behavioral Preference for Culturally Familiar Drinks", which is the most high-brow Coke vs. Pepsi study you could want to see.

The study is creepy because these marketing people were trying to peer into your brain to understand why you buy things and how to manipulate you.

This is Your Brain on Coke [Brand Soda.]

It is an MRI image of a person who saw a Coke logo and drank a sample of Coke while in the MRI. The image is different from someone who saw a light while drinking Coke.

Second, it is not a very good study, and barely concludes anything. It seems to say Coke has more cultural resonance than Pepsi and makes the beverage taste better. It is six years old, and is back from the days when people were publishing any brain map that came out of an MRI.

I found the above study while reading The Art of Choosing, by Sheena Iyangar. She pointed out the emotional investment people have in their soft drink choices.

So why is Coke branding better than Pepsi branding?  It has great graphic design, and it has generally just had one color -- red. Pepsi's  All-American Red, White and Blue does not seem to look as good.  Pepsi has also changed its look more radically over time.