DRINKING WATER Compressed Data: Having Customers Say No to Tap Water New York Times - 8/20/01 By David F. Gallagher,staff writer It is no secret that the Coca-Cola Company would like to sell the world more Coke. But some Web surfers were still taken aback recently by the candor of an article on one of the company's Web sites. The article, which Coca-Cola has since removed, was part of a site created for restaurants that sell the company's drinks. It explained how Coca-Cola had helped the Olive Garden chain reduce "tap water incidence." Coca-Cola had worked with Olive Garden, owned by Darden Restaurants, to develop a program called H2NO, which taught restaurant workers how to discourage customers from sticking with plain old unprofitable water. "Because of its own successful campaign against water," the article said, "the Olive Garden has recently sent a powerful message to the entire restaurant industry — less water and more beverage choices mean happier customers." Rob Cockerham of Sacramento discovered the article last month through a Web search engine and posted a link to it on his personal site, Cockeyed.com. "I had to assure more than one person that this was not a prank, and that it was a real article from Coca-Cola," he said. Word of the article spread to several Web logs — sites that link to and comment upon interesting Web discoveries. Many commentators ridiculed the article's suggestion that the fight against water was intended to make customers happier, and that higher profits were merely "a side effect." "This is awesome," Matthew Haughey commented in a posting on another Web site MetaFilter.com. "It's what corporations say to each other behind customers' backs, only it happens to be on the Web where mortals can see it." But not for long. About a week after the Cockeyed.com link was posted, the article disappeared from Coca-Cola's Web servers. Polly Howes, a spokeswoman for Coca- Cola, said the company was concerned that the article, written three years ago, might be misinterpreted by "folks who aren't in a sales-related business."# ===== Check out the Chico Examiner listserves at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DisorderlyConduct http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ChicoLeft Subscribe to the Chico Examiner for only $40 annually or $25 for six months. Mail cash or check payabe to "Tim Bousquet" to POBox 4627, Chico CA 95927 __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Make international calls for as low as $.04/minute with Yahoo! Messenger http://phonecard.yahoo.com/
