Coca-Cola or Pepsi: the neverending soft drink debate at the U of A

Capitalism triumphs over poor marketing: choose Pepsi

Andrew Jeffrey

It takes a lot to fool me.

This week, Student Council discussed the renewal of the contract Coca-Cola holds with the University of Alberta. If Coca-Cola is smart, that means we’ll be seeing a couple mil spent on an ad campaign directed right at university students to brainwash our student body into voting “yes” to renew this contract on campus. Luckily, I’m no sucker, and I have a knack for seeing right through tricky
advertisements.

In reality, the U of A can find a much superior option by removing all of the Coca-Cola products on campus to be replaced solely with Pepsi brand products. The upswing in quality would be immediately obvious. 7-Up over Sprite? Tropicana over Minute Maid? The added benefit of Mountain Dew and Dr. Pepper on campus? The immense rewards of this shift should be obvious.

But it’s much more than that. Coca-Cola will try and convince you that it’s a refreshingly cool drink to share with friends and family, and it’ll appeal to your vanity by tricking you into thinking that Coke belongs to everyone because your name is literally right on it. STOP. NO. Don’t fall for this nonsense, you’re better than that.

Some stranded soldiers are still fighting the deadly Cola War of the ‘90s, unaware that Pepsi already ended this discussion 15 years ago. Pepsi responsibly reported on this public dissension between Coke and Pepsi with a series of journalistic videos blindfolding random citizens to take a taste test and sample both products. Consistently, more people were shown on these videos to choose Pepsi as the superior drink. To doubt these videos is to doubt the core pillars of respectable, accurate journalism that our country was built on.

If that’s not enough to convince you, Pepsi has made a history of choosing highly intelligent celebrities to endorse their public. The musical genius of David Bowie, Michael Jackson, Beyoncé and One Direction of the entertainment industry have all endorsed Pepsi just like they endorse your favourite songs, so who are you to doubt them? In comparison, the best entertainers dimwitted enough to endorse Coke have been Celine Dion, George Michael and Paula Abdul. Hardly a murderer’s row of talented
songwriters.

This is a no contest. After all, where will we be if we just let Coca-Cola keep its stranglehold on our current beverage options? Still living under their thumb, succumbing to their every whim. To shake up the market place at the U of A, I’d like to see an influx of Pepsi products on campus. Pepsi: the chosen beverage of capitalism.

Coca-cola products vastly superior to Pepsi alternatives

by Cameron Lewis

Why do I even need to explain why the Coca-Cola Corporation and the brands under its umbrella are vastly superior to that of its rival Pepsi? I mean, there’s a reason Pepsi always needs to validate themselves through cheesy gimmicks like the Coke vs. Pepsi challenge, and there’s a reason they’re always the one slamming Coke in their commercials. It’s because they’re a mediocre product, everyone knows it, and they need to do something to prove people otherwise.

Let’s start off by taking a look at what falls under Coke’s umbrella. I’m not going to bother arguing which version of the exact same thing — Coca-Cola or it’s pansy knock-off — is better, because anyone who thinks the latter is the superior product is a flawed individual. Sprite is better than 7-Up, Barq’s root beer is better than Mug root beer, and Nestea is better than Lipton or Brisk or whatever the hell they have going on over there. Props to Pepsi for having Dr. Pepper and Mountain Dew. Coke doesn’t have an immediate equal to those brands, but they have Minute Maid, Fruitopia, Fresca, Five Alive and Fanta to compensate for it. Mountain Dew and Dr. Pepper or fucking Fruitopia. Easy decision.

One thing Pepsi has on Coke is Gatorade. Yeah, you’re right, Gatorade is better than Powerade, and I would be ecstatic if we could find a way to have Gatorade on campus. If somebody could set up an underground business that distributes Gatorade around campus, I would be an investor. There’s your Business 201 project, kids.

While Coke does fall short in the sports performance drink head-to-head matchup, they more than make up for it with straight-up domination in the energy drink department. With Coke, you get NOS and Monster, which are the best energy drinks because NOS doesn’t taste like a blend of candy and chemicals, and Monster has those amazing coffee drinks. Pepsi offers AMP energy drink and Starbucks Refreshers, which are those overpriced Frappuccino drinks with energy shots in them, also known as a cup of Starbucks coffee.

There you have it. You have to look at the Coke vs. Pepsi debate in regards to what each umbrella offers over the other. There is absolutely nothing that Pepsi does that Coke doesn’t also do either just as well, or better. Why fix what isn’t broken and replace something that everybody loves. No one on campus is really complaining that they can’t get Lipton iced tea instead of Nestea, get real.

Keep Coke on campus. We don’t need to force ourselves to think young and be super cool, or whatever it is Pepsi’s advertisement campaign suggests we do. We just need a good, functional drink that can get the job done in each market necessary.