Belching Out the Devil (4 page)

A lone and slightly strangled voice yelps, ‘Yes.'

‘Let me tell you what happens,' says John. ‘Everyone say a little bit of love, let me hear you say ‘Love'. ‘

‘Love' croak six or seven of us.

‘Magic' he gleefully urges.

‘Magic', reply even less than the first time.

‘Magic
and
Happiness!'

‘Happiness' I find myself saying almost alone.

‘And that is what goes on inside the vending machine. Enjoy the show.'

 

The lights go down and the advert begins. If you have a TV you'd recognise it. A young man puts a coin in a Coke vending machine, but as the money rolls down the chute the advert becomes an animation with a sub-Tim Burton soundtrack. A small swarm of huge insects, overweight maggots with helicopter blades strapped to their backs, fly in an empty Coke bottle, which a mechanised decanter promptly fills. A track-suited figure with a gold tooth and a plume on his helmet, half-knight half-pimp, is catapulted - holding a bottle cap - on to the top of the bottle. A gang of fluff ball lips are released from a cage, ambush the bottle and frantically kiss it. Then penguins in goggles throw a snowman into a large fan that blows the flakes from the now decapitated snowman on to the bottle. Finally the drink is led down a parade ground by a band, with cheerleaders and a fireworks display, before being dropped into the trough at the bottom of the vending machine for the young man to collect.

 

As ads go it is actually a very good one, but it is odd that the company guides keep referring to it as a documentary, which it isn't. It is no more a documentary than Snow White is an academic study of interpersonal relationships within polygamous communities. But as the ad finishes the ‘documentary' element begins. Various Coca-Cola employees were interviewed, their words re-voiced by actors and assigned to different cartoon characters from the commercial. So the majorette, all blue hair, lips and eyelashes has a voice of an All American Mall Girl, whose words at least are a real worker's testimony.

‘Are we rolling?' she asks in true behind-the-scenes
documentary style. ‘Hi I'm Wendy, I'm single…and it's my job to keep everybody happy,' the coy cartoon trills. How would she describe Coca-Cola? ‘Coke is like a little bottle of sparkle dust.'

 

Later the maggot with the helicopter blades (who upon closer examination looks like he has nipple rings or piercings of some kind) says in a deep husky voice, ‘It's a relaxed atmosphere, it is not like some jobs that are tense when you get [t]here, it is a good working environment.'

 

These, remember, are the words of Coca-Cola employees, recorded and revoiced. According to these real employees, Coke is a great place to work, so it must be true. It is such a good environment that all sorts of creatures line up to testify, including a blue, long-necked chimera, a weasel salamander in a hard hat with a monkey wrench held over his shoulder. He speaks in a gruff ol' southern voice ‘I smile ten minutes before I go to bed and ten minutes before I wake up every morning…It is people like me an' Eddie who make this company, the fact that we have been here and stayed here, to me that is the heart and soul of Coca-Cola.'

 

And as if that wasn't enough a shy Hispanic woman tuba player, demurely whispers, ‘What have I given to Coca-Cola? My loyalty and my love. I give that.' She pauses before adding, ‘Don't make me cry.'

 

Is she glad to work for the company? ‘We are lucky to be one little piece of this wonderful company.'

 

The room momentarily goes dark as the feature finishes, people begin to shift in their seats, when the music suddenly swells louder. I turn to the noise just as the auditorium lights come on and catch the cinema screen swiftly gliding upwards, to reveal a secret corridor behind it. Guides are now on their
feet, arms outstretched, beckoning us to leave our seats, descend the stairs and enter the tunnel, leading us to the next part of our tour, while a voice booms ‘Welcome to the Happiness Factory.'

T
here are seven more rooms in the Happiness Factory and with the exception of the miniature bottling plant they all contain yet more adverts, Olympic ads, sports ads, ads in Arabic, German, French…on rolls the Happiness Factory with its TV screens blasting even more ads…onwards to the Perfect Pauses Theater, a small movie screen where you can watch Coke ads on an endless loop - and people do! Couples sit arm-in-arm watching adverts together. If by some perverted act of sabotage a film started to play in the middle of the ads the audience would get up and walk out, bored and confused. The final chamber, The World of Coca-Cola's colon if you will, is the tasting room, where dispensers pour Coca-Cola products from around the world for all to sample. It is packed with kids on a school trip, shouting over the music and tearing from tap to tap with plastic cups, while the teachers look on powerless to stop the sugar-rush tsunami that is heading towards them.

 

Naturally the exit is via the gift shop. And equally naturally every item on sale is covered in Coca-Cola logos, thus turning customers into walking adverts. The school kids from the tasting room will pass through here soon and at that thought I silently offer up a prayer to the god of small shoplifters.

‘What did you expect Mark?'

 

Well, that is a good question and I am glad you asked it. It is hardly surprising that the company self-promotes to the point
of nausea. It is the company's showcase attraction - a fizzy-drink version of Disneyland. Actually it is more Chessington World of Adventure, but you get the point. The attraction is unlikely to be a thorough critical examination of the Company's business practices. By now you might be thinking: ‘Lighten up Mark, it is a Coke fun house, there is free fizzy drink, a working bottling plant which is vaguely educational and kids can get their picture taken with a polar bear! What more do you want?' Or you may think, ‘It employs thousands of people around the world, it sponsors some worthy projects, surely that is a good thing?'

 

It'll come as no surprise that PR is designed to show companies in the best possible light and this will always be different from cold reality. But consider this: the animated majorette from the Happiness Factory commercial just called Coke ‘a little bottle of sparkle dust'. Consider the disparity between eight teaspoons of sugar in each can of Coke and ‘sparkle dust'. Frankly, it would be nearer the truth if the huge maggot with the strapped on helicopter blades were to appear crying, ‘I'm so fat because I drink this sugary shit everyday! Now I need to get my stomach stapled!' There can be a wind-blown plain of tumbleweed between the image a transnational promotes and the reality of working for them or having them as a neighbour.

 

This is a globalised economy, where goods and money move with ease to the cheapest work force and some of the cheapest labour is found in some of dodgiest countries with poor human rights records and little or no environmental standards. And just as transnationals move in and out of tax havens, labour markets and emerging economies, so their critics have found an emerging world of dissent. If the familiar jingle of the Coca-Cola crates bouncing on a delivery truck can be heard in the furthest reaches of a mountain track, then a
phone can get there too, or an internet connection and a camcorder, even an old camera will do. If your company gets caught dumping toxic materials in a village stream then it only takes one photo and a send button for your logo to be wired up to a world of trouble.

 

Coca-Cola say they strive ‘to enrich the workplace, preserve and protect our environment and make a positive difference and effective contribution to our shared world.'
¹⁶
They say that they have ‘long been committed to using our resources and capabilities to help improve the quality of life in the communities where we operate.'
¹⁷
But it is not the company tale I am concerned with. I'm interested in hearing from those who deal with the Company every day - the villagers, farmers, workers and shopkeepers. These are the people I want to find, these are the people I want to talk to, these are the stories I want to tell.

 

In the World of Coca-Cola, not only have folk paid $15 to watch, celebrate and have a chance to purchase the company's adverts, Coke have even found a way for their visitors to contribute to the company's PR machine. Up on level two the Pop Culture Gallery houses some kitsch retro-style furniture, a few Andy Warhols and a large Perspex display filled with handwritten letters. The identical writing paper and legibility of the script suggests that these are not the originals, but the content at least is written by Coke's customers. A sign reads ‘Whether it's a childhood memory, a moment of refreshment far from home, or a recollection of good times with friends, Coca-Cola touches the lives of millions of people. Do you have a favourite Coca-Cola story? Share your story with us…' Which is exactly what I am doing. Going around the world, hearing stories from people whose lives have been touched by Coca-Cola and its bottlers.

 

For there is one missing detail from the tale of Coca-Cola's brand value. It is true that company profits have risen, they have bought other brands and sold more Coca-Cola and it is also true that the Company was rated the world's top brand for the seventh year in a row. Yes, the brand value is estimated at $65,324 billion.
¹⁸
Yes, that is a huge sum of money. But the missing detail is that this figure of $65,324 billion is actually a drop in value. In 2006 the figure was $67 billion,
¹⁹
in 2005 it was $67,525 billion.
²⁰
Which means the company has lost $2.2 billion in brand value, that's $2.2 billion of goodwill the company has lost in the past couple of years. Something is beginning to make people like Coca-Cola less.

 

It is a small irony, given Coke's original ingredients, that the company's current PR problems started in Colombia. The murder of a trade unionist working for Coca-Cola's bottler and the subsequent campaign has inspired students, campaigners and activists around the world to challenge the company and has brought the mighty drinks giant up against a stark fact: if you are a transnational at the forefront of globalisation, then opposition to your practices can be globalised right back at you. So that's why I'm sitting in an airport waiting lounge bound for Colombia. I am going to hear just how some of those billions of dollars worth of ‘sparkle dust' started to turn to dust.