If you totally remove Coke from the market, sure, but no one wants to drink a knockoff Coke, they want the actual thing.

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dathinab 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

actual, that is de-facto wrong

many alternative Colas don't try to imitate Coca Cola but give Cola their own twist, and IMHO multiple of them taste noticeable better then Coca Cola

and for people with little money getting cheaper knock-off is pretty common and people get used to it

at the same time Coca Colas brand isn't seen as "fancy"/"high quality"/"well regarded" enough anymore. So many restaurants for which cola isn't just a "default fallback they don't care about" but a drink commonly combined with their meals, started serving other Cola brand like e.g. Fritz Cola, Mio Mio Cola or Afri Cola. Also some of the more beer/alk. focused companies have started to branch out to soft drinks as Alkohole consume is going down with some surprise successes (e.g. Paulana Spezi) but also with existing distribution contracts with Restaurants and Food Chains, so their stuff is popping up increasingly more often.

And I mean we are still speaking about the kind of soft drink with the most dominant brand control (Cola/Coca Cola), for all other soft drinks the US companies have a far less strong hold on them.

And sure some pople like I guess you will insist on drinking Coca Cola.

But also if the US continues to paint themself as the new big evil (while Russia looks increasingly weak, and China is clever enough to move mostly behind the scene) then it's just a matter of time until people will start ostracizing people for buying (unnecessary) products which are "well known US" and haven't somehow separated their company image from the US. Like seriously how did the US became so incompetent in politics that you find people all over the EU which think joining with China against the US would be a good idea and long term better for their quality of live... like wtf.

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dukeyukey 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

We are talking about individuals here. People are absolutely capable of not drinking Coke because they want to avoid American products.

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xvector 3 hours ago | parent [-]

I promise you that virtually no people care about avoiding American products that much. You are being idealistic, and are simply out of touch with the average person if you actually believe this.

Virtually one will stop buying Coke. Virtually no one will stop wanting an iPhone. So on and so forth. They will gladly criticize the US while continuing to indulge in the biggest brand names.

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toyg 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> no people care about avoiding American products that much.

Today, yes. Once US troops start forcefully occupying European territory, eh...

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dukeyukey 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

There have already been significant decreases in Canadian (and likely other countries) purchases of American goods, and travel to the US. The thing you say will never happen, already happened last year.

Jim Beam (the bourbon distillery) said before Trump 10% of their sales were to Canada, and that has gone to nearly zero.

	▲	dathinab 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		yep, and in some part of the EU the dominant position of Coca Cola has been crumbling for reasons unrelated to the US and many "not a cheap knock off" alternative already exist...

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toyg 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Only if knockoff are not of the same quality, which is the case because competing on price is a race to the bottom. But if it becomes a brand issue, and some serious investment can be justified, then consumer adoption can be engineered.

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xvector 2 hours ago | parent [-]

It was always a branding issue. But it is not so easy to engineer consumer adoption unless you directly subvert consumer will (ie higher taxes on Coke, etc.)

	▲	dathinab 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		or by being ostracized for drinking Cola (Coca Cola has bound it's brand tightly to the US image, which was grate for them after WW2, but is pretty bad for them now that Trump is very reliably destroying the US image). or by most people agreeing Cola isn't healthy, so it's becomes a Luxus product they just sometimes drink and then going for a slightly more "interesting" alternative brand which fit's more the "fancy treat" vibe is pretty common (we already have been seeing this in part of Germany, where it's not rare that restaurants serve Fritz or Afro Cola over Coca Cola as the Brands "seem" more fancy while Coca Cola feels more like the cheaper non fancy choice. By being relative cheap Coca Cola might have opened created the perfect basis for it being replaced in the "fancy" context. And by it not being cheap enough it get replaced in the "people with no money" context. This leads the "in between" context (which would still be a majority in Germany) and all the US food chains etc. but only if the people don't have a personal reason to switch. Most people in Germany drink Cola only from time to time.