Via Shutterstock.comA former Coca-Cola executive told a roomful of advocates for healthier living that after 10 years with the beverage giant, he is trying to repay a “karmic debt.” Speaking at a “National Soda Summit,” Todd Putman, Coke’s former head of marketing, denounced a strategy he once pursued called “share of stomach,” The Washington Post reports.
To Coca-Cola and other manufacturers of sugary drinks, “share of stomach” represented, quite literally, the amount of room taken up in customers’ stomachs relative to other, healthier beverages, Putman said.
“It was a mind-bending paradigm shift for me,” he told the conference. “We weren’t trying to get share of market. We weren’t about trying to beat Pepsi or Mountain Dew. We were about trying to beat everything.”
But Putman says he regrets it today, especially when it comes to sugar-based drinks’ share of the African-American and Hispanic markets, where rates of obesity are far higher relative to the general population. All this weighed heavily on him and resulted in him opening a private marketing practice that only represents healthy clients, the Post reports:
When he formed his own marketing company, Future Pull Group, he made a vow never to take clients whose products are unhealthful.
Still, broadcasting that decision felt like a more daunting step.
Putman said he finally decided to go public with his views out of dismay at what he considers the abysmal marketing being done to promote healthful foods.
A Coca-Cola spokesman told the Post that the company no longer uses the “share of stomach” approach, but to Putman and others, the damage has been done and needs to be rectified. Coke says it does not market itself to consumers younger than 12, but Putman said the target audience is not much older. “I would say 90 percent of all soft drink marketing is targeted at 12- to 24-year-olds,” he said at the conference.
The backlash against sugary, high-calorie soda is nothing new, of course. Last month, the Centers for Disease Control published a new report reminding consumers of the continuing expansion of fast-food portion sizes.
But more famously, New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg recently proposed a ban on servings of sugary beverages larger than 16 ounces, a policy that would take effect at restaurants, movie theaters, stadiums and grocery stores. (Most individual-sized bottled sodas are 20 or 24 ounces.) The beverage industry quickly reacted, painting Bloomberg as a nanny seeking to regulate every facet of New Yorkers’ lives. Still, other high-profile advocates for healthy living backed Bloomberg, including first lady Michelle Obama.
