Coca-Cola: A Black Sweet Drink from Trinidad

1. Coca-Cola:A Black Sweet Drink from Trinidad By Daniel Miller

2. Material Culture and Meta-Symbols • There is a great fear of objects supplanting people having to do with the fear of a material culture. In its earlier Marxist form, this fear was of the use of commodity as a vehicle for capitalist dominance. • Coca-cola is a meta-symbol and a meta-commodity. • This symbol is dangerous because it allows it to be filled with almost anything someone would like to ascribe to it. • It has the potential to not only stand for commodities and capitalism, but also imperialism and Americanization. • The meta-symbol really began from the late 1970s when the need for advertising which was designed for international markets was identified.

3. Advertising in Other Countries • Advertisements can be changed for cultural, legal, religious and marketing reasons. • Re-shot with more clothed models for Muslim countries. • “I feel Coke” phrase which came a kind of “Japanesed English”. • These are controlled by corporate strategies, but when asked about them, the advertiser claimed: • “I don’t think Coca-Cola projects. I think that Coca-Cola reflects.”

4. But does Coca-Cola Control? • There are reasons for questioning the theory of commodity power that is involved in assuming that the company controls its own effects (which also shows that coca-Cola is not typical of globalization). • Examples: • The enforced restitution of “Classic Coke”. • Company’s goal was profit and the new taste scored well in blind tests, but when Coke tried to change the formula people became upset and the company was humiliated. • The form of its inception was based on franchising. • The company developed by agreeing with local bottling plants that had exclusivity for a particular region and then would simply sell their concentrate to the bottler. Centralizing of the bottling system has only happened within the last few years and has only happened within the USA.

5. Coca-Cola in Trinidad • Coca-Cola is less associated with the States in the US because its presence is taken for granted. However, it is different on an island like Trinidad where its arrival coincided with the arrival of US presence (Coke came to Trinidad in 1939). • “Rum and Coke” came from mixing the Coca-Cola with the Trinidadian calypso. • US soldiers began to look at the Trinidadians as a resource to get what they wanted and were therefore remembered as brutal and exploitative. • Trinidadians began to feel, at this time, that the commoditization of local sexuality and labor were objectified through the mix of Rum and Coke.

6. The Trinidadian Soft Drink Industry • Trinidad Coke is bottled by Cannings, one of the oldest grocery firms (est. 1912). • The franchise was obtained in 1939 and expanded with the bottling of Diet Coke and Sprite. However, Coke did not dominate Cannings which continued to expand. • Cannings was taken over in 1975 by one of the two local dominant corporations. • Cannings and Neil & Massey do not represent localization. They may be seen as representing national interests against foreign interests, they may also be seen as representing white elite interests.

7. The Consumption of Sweet Drinks • Sweet drinks are seen as Trinidadian and are never viewed as important luxuries that people cannot afford. • The average person in Trinidad consumes 170 bottles a year. • Price controls were put in place by the government to make sure people would be able to afford the product. • Sweet drinks are separated into “Red Sweet Drinks” and “Black Sweet Drinks” with Coca-Cola being the primary Black Sweet Drink. • Often these drinks (how they’re advertised and how they’re ordered) can be seen as having both economic and ethnicity importance.

8. Coca-Cola and Globality • In Trinidad Coca-Cola is both seen as a brand and a generic form of a “black” sweet drink. It thus becomes an image that develops through the local contradictions of popular culture as a part of a debate of how people should be. • Coca-Cola carries both long-term and temporary connotations in Trinidad. • Ethnicity is often used in advertising for different sweet drinks. • It retains a notion of the modern due to its advertising. • It’s become nostalgic due to its presence in Trinidad for many generations.

9. Consumption vs. Production • There are huge advertising complexities that come to light due to surveys. • A highly sophisticated advertisement came in first as the most popular, but the second was an amateur-looking ad for insecticide. • What’s seen as a necessity in one country may be seen as a luxury in another. • Localisms are not necessarily fostered by company executives who are from a different social statuses whose social prejudices sometimes outweigh the notion of being profitable. • What works on an international level doesn’t always work on a local level (especially in terms of advertisements).

10. Conclusions • Production and Consumption are two separate entities which still need to be compared to one another; especially when a company is based in franchising. • There are often huge differences between local and global material cultures. • Coke is seen as a global image, although globality is a localized image. • Although Coca-Cola may be seen as a sort of meta-symbol, the differences in the drinkers who consume it and the local companies which bottle it show that it may not really be anything more than a black sweet drink.