POL 300 Day 8: Feb 9

Put yourself in Coca-Cola or PepsiCo’s position as their marketing director. With the rise of childhood obesity and schools and government action out against beverage companies, what approach will your company male to continue brand loyalty? Do you believe, for instance, that Powerade will be marketed to schools as its healthy choice in vending machines?

Given the current call for healthier foods and drinks I would certainly try to market my product as being healthy or synonymous with a healthy lifestyle. It's the reason why Sprite or Pepsi always show healthy, athletic people drinking their product and having a great time doing it. I would take parts of the strategies that Vitamin Water uses to make their product seem good for people. After convincing a large number of the population that my product is not as bad as once thought, thus giving me the ability to lobby Congress with the support of the some of their constituency. But then again, I have morals and enabling younger children to die of coronary heart disease before their 40th birthday isn't something that I could encourage and still sleep at night.

Now put yourself in the shoes of a school administrator belonging to an urban population. While the education in cities is not considered the greatest, what boundaries do you set up with your “pouring rights” contract? Do you accept the money to afford things like computers, arts, sports, metal detectors? If you don’t, how do you get more funding from government? Which do you value more then: nutrition or funding?

As a school administrator, I would worry about the overall health of my students. As a concession with the companies, they would only be allowed to bring in juice drinks that they produce. Personally, kids need to be taught from a young age what they should and should not consume. They are not always going to make the right nutrition decisions so it makes no sense to inhibit their wants for junk foods and drinks in an environment that they spend more than half of their time until they are 18. In order to get more funding it would be best to find other sponsors that would not be related to unhealthy foods (i.e. I'd rather have Exxon posters throughout my school rather than Pizza Hut). Also, lobbying government for money would have to be a priority. If we need outside help from Coca-Cola or Pepsi to provide an adequate education to our young people, shouldn't we be giving more money to it then???? How is that our grandparents never had this problem but now there is an epidemic of education revenue shortages? People need to vote.