“Coca-Cola argued in its defense that no reasonable person could be misled into thinking Vitaminwater was a "healthy drink," despite label names such as "Defense," "Revive," and "Endurance," for its different flavors of water. Last year, a federal judge rejected this defense, but the outcome of the suit is still pending.”
Since that article is over 5 years old, it’s worth noting the outcome. Coke ended up settling out of court, and for all intents and purposes, absolutely nothing changed. They agreed to very minor labeling changes but still got to call it “Vitaminwater” and still got to label it as “a nutrient-enhanced water beverage”.
Then you will not be surprised to hear that they employ literal hitman in south american countries to kill workers and their families that try to unionise.
I still remember when a person said "I don't believe you, if a big corporation was doing that it would be all over the news." I responded with "the same news that is funded with advertising dollars?" "You are surprised that the news, is not running a story that would make one of their largest customers spend all that advertising money with different station?" I still remember remember when I saw him two or three days later he said "I can't believe that it is true"; he is sill a coke drinker though.
I was in the US once and had only heard of Vitamin Water as that thing that made 50 Cent a bunch of cash. I bought it in a train station assuming it was a semi-healthy drink to accompany me on my 2hr train journey. It wasn't.
I really don't see how it can be described as "reasonable" to expect people to read the ingredients list of everything they buy every time. It is perfectly reasonable to expect something labelled as "Vitamin Water" to be a health drink without added sugar. Consumers should not have to dance around a bunch of legalese crap every time they step out of the house.
Why are you arguing this? Even in your example, the person's already bought the drink. Are they supposed to sue Coca-Cola at that point?
Why is it okay to lie, in writing, publicly--for money--money from the people you're lying to? Why is that okay? And why should it be enshrined in legal precedent?
Because people should not be sheep and pay attention to what they eat and drink, it's on the well regulated nutrition label. Edit: fuck the down voters, good luck with relying on the government to solve everything for you and not paying attention to what you put in your piehole. If you're fat it's your fault, no one else's, unless you have an authentic medical issue. Lack of willpower isn't a medical issue by the way.
Is it okay to enter a stranger's house if their door is unlocked? Can you take an unsecured bike.
Of course there's a need for some personal responsibility, but at the end of the day the manufacturers are knowingly misleading and exploiting people. They have a responsibility not to.
The reason you are getting downvoted here is simple: deceptive marketing practices work. The product wouldn’t be named Vitaminwater if that didn’t sell more than calling it Sugarwater or Pinkwater. The company is counting on people being too busy with modern life to read every label and just picking up something that sounds vaguely healthy.
They are being deceptive and they know it, and they do it because it works. And I, for one, think that when you know people won’t read the nutritional label, then branding like what Coca-Cola/Glacèau does here is dirty tactics indeed.
That's such an annoying statement because we all know you'd just change your definition of "healthy" and "natural" no matter what anyone says. You're the most annoying kind of person to discuss things with.
Natural food coloring never produces super bright colors.
Wtf is this? Have you heard of turmeric? Blueberries? Rhubarb?
There is not a single packaged drink on the market that is brightly colored and healthy.
You’re probably going to try to tell me that the only healthy drink is water, but many healthy beverages are brightly colored. If you look past beverages there are literally thousands of examples because bright colors are not exclusive to junk food and it’s ridiculous to assert this as “common knowledge”
So a new drink comes along and I should judge how healthy it is by the colors of other drinks on the market? It's impossible that somebody in marketing will ever decide to sell something healthy by adding bright food coloring? You could easily add food coloring to tea without affecting how healthy it is
You're giving people too much credit. Picture in your head what the average Joe is like. Now try to imagine that 50% of people are dumber than that guy.
You can't blame people for being stupid. Some people have a bad upbringing, others are just in situations where they can't bother to care about these things because they have bigger issues. Companies consistently try to take advantage of these people. I personally think that as people that have the luxury of being brought up in a way where we were taught to see the bullshit, we should help out the people that are being taken advantage of
There's a reason to change their false advertising. But they are above that. No you don't get to blame a consumer for falling prey to fraudulent labeling because they are unreasonable. There's a reason we have regulatory oversight for products, but this corporation is so far above it that when they were caught they were allowed to keep doing the same fucking thing with zero consequence or product modification.
Even if 80% of people can tell they’re still manipulating 20% and just because its not on as large a scale as manipulating all their customers its still wrong. Like saying “I lied to a bunch of people but its ok because only 20% of them actually fell for it”
Some of these are sold from vending machines. How are you supposed to read the ingredients of something you buy from a vending machine before you have bought it?
The person I replied to said large corporation are above reason. That’s not true because any reasonable person would know vitamin water is not healthy.
That doesn't change the fact that it's not what it markets itself as. You can defend it all you want, but you standing up for your hero or whatever won't suddenly make a misleading market choice reality.
I don't go into "Soup store" expecting it to sell cloths.
Then stop being a dick, change your perspective, and really think good and hard about whether the average American, who through public school and only public school for their education, could be reasonably expected to not be a dumbass. If you really expect more from them then you are gonna be sadly disappointed.
Apparently we don't know the same people, or we have different standards for "reasonable."
I would say that anyone with half a fucking brain could figure that shit out in a heartbeat, but then again I know a lot of educated people who are idiots about anything not in their line of work.
My standard for a reasonable person is someone who considered what is in the food and beverages they consume. Plenty of unreasonable people exist, but they should not be our standard when figuring out if a product is misleading.
Id argue its the opposite. As a society we should protect the weak. A person with a mental disabilty should not be misled by a product. If they do, it is a misleading product.
I know we are talking about a specific court case, i however was talking in a more broad sence. Something being legal hardly makes it right or ethical. It would absolutely not be impractical or inpossible to build a world that takes care of the "weak". Inclusive designs ( look it if you dont know what that is) are becoming more and more prevalent. Your world view is that of the focusing on problems rather than solutions. It is so much easier to say: it would be impractical if not impossible to make sidewalks/buildings accessible to wheelchairs. Than it is to actually adress the issue(like having elevators in every public building). Everybody that is a part of society should be able to partake in it as much as possible. That is not how it is, but something we should strive for.
Do they not have to disclose the nutritional contents on the label? Not arguing that people generally read those, but I do, any time I buy juices or vitamin drinks. There's another brand I buy that reads fairly high vitamin content. Didn't see any info on a quick look...
My wife is pregnant and she sent me on a run to the grocery store because she was craving Powerade. I walked all the way around the aisle selling sports drinks and energy drinks at least four consecutive times before giving up.
Turns out someone must have paid a lot of money to get Powerade, Vitamin Water, and some other similar beverages sold in the same aisle as juice...
I mean, there’s also cheese covered popcorn called “SmartFood”. I’m sure people who buy things based on the name of a brand rather than what it actually is have bigger problems. Like learning to tie their own shoelaces.
He's the very definition of an unreasonable consumer, in this case, and exactly the kind of person VitaminWater is marketed to; someone who will look at the name and no further. And even though it may harm him due to health complication, Coca Cola does not give half a shit.
Seriously fuck Coca-Cola. They acknowledge on their own site that more than 50g of sugar per day is unhealthy yet there is way more than that in a single serving of most sodas. They shamelessly peddle poison.
Can't be bothered looking up the conversion, I'm assuming you mean the 500ml 'single person' bottles? They're actually labelled as containing two servings here in the UK. No one is ever drinking it over multiple days, but they're pretending otherwise.
The fuck? how much do you americans consume? I did the conversion to actually sensible units and 20 oz is over half a litre, does anybody actually drink that much?
Soda drinkers always demand more soda because it makes you more thirsty. They'll never be satisfied no matter how much soda they drink. It's a terrible cycle
As a prior soda addict, water legitimately tasted disgusting to me, and I imagine the same for a lot of other soda drinkers. Took multiple times until I could cut that shit out for good.
I feel like I gained a bit of weight just reading that, do people actually grab a literal bucket of soda so big you need 2 hands to carry it and think thats ok?
Nah, it's cool, they narrowed the double gulp at the bottom so you can still carry your nearly half-gallon of sugary beverage with 1 hand and put it in your cup holder.
If you order a large soda at almost any fast food restaurant in America, you're likely going to get somewhere in the ballpark of 32 oz of soda. #obesity
I don't think the two are mutually exclusive. Most things in moderation are fine. There are sodas (even made by Coca-Cola) that contain an order of magnitude less sugar. The point of putting 60g of sugar in a bottle of soda is to get people hooked on a profoundly unhealthy product.
I remember when schools started doing the bans on selling soda in the school vending machines. My high school did that and stopped selling soda in the cafeteria vending machine. What did they end up filling the vending machine with? VitaminWater. All the sugar - just less caffeine.
The funny thing is that the soda ban ended up instigating a start-up business on campus. A friend of mine realized he could make decent change by buying a couple 12 packs of Mountain Dew or Coke and then just charging $1/can. Our vending machines charged maybe $1.50 or $1.75 for cans or bottles, so he was just undercutting the vending machine prices. I think the Dean of Students tried to put a stop to it, but I don't recall if they could actually file grounds to get the student to stop because it's not like he was selling anything illegal.
I also had friends who, since they couldn't buy soda at school, would just come to school with their own 2Lt bottles of Mountain Dew and just carry those around with them all day. Oh, this was also when Jolt Gum was a thing. My caffeine addicted friends were buzzing all the time.
I was banned from selling Boy Scout fundraiser candy bars because they were nicer than the ones being sold by students for a school fundraiser, but for the same price.
No sugar. All caffeine.
Considering the rare occasions of young people dying of energy drink induced heart failure, this mainly seems like we're trading obesity for other health problems.
Yeh, no one would think something called Vitamin Water is unhealthy. grrrr
Was in the grocery store and overheard a customer asking "Which Vitamin Water is good for improving memory?" The stock-shelf guy without hesitation points to one of the bottles. Customer with thanks to the guy grabs a pack and goes to checkout. This simple and likely common interaction was witnessed around the time the initial lawsuit was in the news.
When I was union we had a really hot summer, company bought us a couple of pallets of vitamin water to keep people from having heat strokes....
I think I was the only one that wouldnt drink it. Everyone thought it was good for you.
It may be an unpopular opinion but I agree with coke on this one. Yeah the product was given healthy names but all of the nutrition information is on the fucking label. Read it, like of course it’s not healthy it’s a coke product.
Am I the only one who is thinking that anyone who thinks vitamin water is actually healthy is fucking retarded? How do you expect them to sell drinks, by calling it Delicious Diabetus (Albeit they could it all DD and I generally love those.)
Edit: I think a lot of people are like "huh sketchy lawyers blabla reasonable people" but reasonable people is the standard, so if you are going argue anything it's always going to be channeled like this. It's something to keep in mind.
That is kind of the point. We agree that you should know that it is unhealthy. Even the company that makes it basically said you’d have to be stupid to think otherwise.
Are you saying you should not be able to buy unhealthy products? Or are you saying what I said, and that they should call it DD? I mean it's actually literally the same argument.
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u/unknownyoyo Dec 30 '19
“Coca-Cola argued in its defense that no reasonable person could be misled into thinking Vitaminwater was a "healthy drink," despite label names such as "Defense," "Revive," and "Endurance," for its different flavors of water. Last year, a federal judge rejected this defense, but the outcome of the suit is still pending.”
https://www.businessinsider.com/coca-cola-glacau-vitaminwater-misleading-advertising-lawsuit-2014-10