The trade against the Coca-Cola boycott made the situation worse

Coca-Cola’s advertising campaign this summer sought to counter the boycott of its products in several Asian countries, and particularly in Bangladeshit made the situation worse. Coca Cola, like many brands Americans have found a decline in sales in several Muslim-majority countries, where these brands are seen to be linked to Israel, after the start of an attack on the Gaza Strip in which nearly 40,000 Palestinians were killed. killed so far. In Bangladesh, for example, sell Coca-Cola has gone down by 23 percent since the beginning of the war.

The company then hired Sharaf Ahmed Jibon, a popular actor in the country, for a television advertisement that intended to redeem the image of the carbonated drink that is famous throughout the world. Before it was canceled, the ad aired in June T20 Cricket World Cupthe most followed sport in Bangladesh and many other Commonwealth countries, ie those that were part of the British colonial empire, including India and Pakistan.

In the ad, Jibon plays a shopkeeper who reassures his customers, who say they no longer want to consume Coca-Cola because it is a product of the United States , whose government strongly supports Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “Listen, guys, Coca-Cola is not from ‘that place,'” says the actor, where “that place” is Israel. In fact: «Palestine also has a Coke factory».

This last sentence caused great protests from the public for whom the advertisement was intended. Of course, the “factory” in question found in the West Bank, but within Atarot, one of the considered Israeli settlements illegal with the international community. The attempt to separate yourself from Israel, therefore, has inadvertently made an unacceptable situation more apparent to many practitioners of the Islamic faith, who sympathize with the Palestinian people and who are of the belief that Israeli residents are guilty of crimes against humanity.

In the last few days, Coca-Cola has apologized for the mistake. “We recognize that the video missed the point, and we apologize. The video has been removed from all platforms.” he said al Washington Post Scott Leith, group vice president of global strategic communications. Another of the actors in the commercial, Shimul Sharma, in June he had apologized publicly and Jibon had also repeatedly said that he would not “support Israel in any way”.

In an effort to stem the decline in sales, Coca-Cola had stepped up its advertising investments in Bangladesh, buying advertising space in paper newspapers and on its websites. In February also the company was sold the branch that bottles the soft drink in Bangladesh to Coca-Cola İçecek, its Turkish subsidiary (in which the Turkish company Anadolu Efes has a majority). According to some analysts, this was also a job of image: that is, giving the market of another predominantly Muslim country the trust of a company from a predominantly Muslim country.

In Turkey, among other things, the boycott that is usually done informally by consumers had jumped to an institutional level, so to speak. Last autumn the president of the Turkish parliament, Numan Kurtulmuş (who is part of the party of the president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan), was actually it was forbidden to sell Coca-Cola in restaurants and bars in the parliament building.

While sales of Coca-Cola have declined, sales of other less popular local carbonated drinks have increased in several countries. For example, in Bangladesh Mojo was seen as an alternative to Coca-Cola. Something similar happened for Jordanian Matrix Cola and Saudi Kinza.

The boycott in Muslim-majority countries has also been a problem for other Western brands, such as he wrote last week Financial Times. US restaurant or bar chains such as McDonald’s, Starbucks were particularly affected KFC. The cosmetics company L’Oréal estimated that the boycotts led to 2 percent lower growth in the first half of 2024 than expected; while Starbucks he suggested 2 thousand people were laid off in Middle Eastern countries due to lower income.

In general, companies are very reluctant to mention the effect of the boycott in their official communication, for fear of giving a clear acknowledgment that it is really hurting them. Even PepsiCo, the main one competitive Coca-Cola world, communication disaster: in May there was an advertising campaign in Egypt that revived the slogan “Stay thirsty” much contested because it was considered disrespectful while, in nearby Gaza, there was – and still is – a lack of water and food.

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