cola wars
This was the year Coca-Cola reintroduced cocaine in the secret recipe: Coke Classic XX market shares went through the roof. The FDA certified their products ‘safe’ so PepsiCo countered with a Viagra additive, Diet Priapic. Sales in the over 40 demographic shot past Coke in the first month after introduction. The race was on…. Coca-Cola began an internet campaign aimed at the teen market: HOT COLA, a caffeine and pheromone enhanced super high fructose sugar concoction the FDA instigated investigations after 200 incidents of what the media reported as ‘date rape Coke’, but soon exonerated the company, declaring ‘the evidence of pheromone overdose has been greatly over-estimated.’ Sales of HOT COLA exceeded market expectation by 300%.
PepsiCo launched their own version, touting an anti-zit acne treatment ingredient. Unfortunately, it caused sterility in males. Pepsi altered its ad campaign to appeal to consumers as the ‘birth control of pop.’ Initially considered a stock market catastrophe, Pepsi-IUD soon rallied as the poster child for product Re-Branding. Sales skyrocketed in opposite proportion to teen age pregnancies. Coke attempted damage control with its Coke-Fertility Zero Diet drink, but soon pulled ads and product after studies showed heavy drinkers exhibited pronounced embryonic abnormalities. Coca-Cola denied culpability but quietly paid huge damaged claims to teenage girls with encephalitic twins and triplets and worse. Stocks tumbled despite non-disclosure agreements.
Pepsi stood pat. Coke introduced Coke Classic 4X, using a secret Merck artificial cocaine reformulated to evade FDA objections. Meth sales in the United States plummeted and a new industry, Coke Distillery, started up and flourished briefly until Glaxo Pharmaceuticals began selling a pure form of the Coke additive they called KRANK. Coca-Cola sued successfully to halt production, but an underground market continued. Once again Coca-Cola stocks tumbled, this time by 25%. Glaxo Pharma doubled in 3 months, then doubled again, despite SEC investigations into their underground operations.
As of this writing, the government, under President Palin, instructed the FDA chairman Scott Walker (former CEO of Phizer) to fast track future approval of soda formulas in order to keep ahead of the Chinese who entered the market with their own brands of lead-based colas that had lowered the IQ of American children 16 points in the 5 years since their introduction. Pepsi and Coke stocks briefly doubled.
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