Gaza Cola is a new cola brand, launched in the UK, with a promise of sending all its profits to the rebuilding of hospitals in Palestine. The brand is trying to ride on an Anti-USA sentiment in the light of the Hamas – Israel confict. Mecca Cola launched in 2002 in France was probably the first to take anti-USA stance by going after the big American Cola boys. The brand tried to ride the anti-US sentiment in Islamic countries and with the Muslim populations in European countries.
Why is it that protests pick the sugary drink for their single focused attention and do these strategies work? Remember what Geeta Mehta expounded in her book ‘Karma Cola’: the packaging and mass marketing of unique Indian offerings [yoga, meditation, naturecare etc.] can be equated to the marketing prowess of cola brands.
Are we seeing the opposite of this, with colas being equated to ‘Adharma’ in a sense?
Let us unpack this bit by bit, or sip by sip, starting with a look at religion and consumer behaviour.
Religion and consumer behaviour has been a topic of great interest to me. In fact my PhD thesis was on the topic of how religiosity can affect the way we choose and consume products and services. Surprisingly religion has not been a hot topic among consumer researchers. While there are some pioneering work done by researchers like Elizabeth Hirshman [University of Virginia], you will not find hundreds of researches on the topic. Why you may ask? For one religion is seen as a taboo topic, not to be asked, at least in a market research interview situation. Readers of this paper may be surprised to learn that the US census does not collect religious affiliation of the respondent. In India we have been collecting religion information for the last 90+ years and this year there is a debate on more granular information to be collected about the respondents. What does the existing research done on religion and consumer behaviour point to? Religiosity can be studies from two angles. One is the religious affiliation [Hindus, Catholics, Protestants, Muslims etc.]. The other is the intensity of religious belief, or how actively religious is a person. The research one could access did say that across Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, Jews, Hindus there were some differences in the way they decide on their purchases. For example, Muslims and Jews were seen to be more innovative and adventuresome in their purchase decisions. The research I did in India did not show any major difference across various religious consumers when it came to purchase of consumer durables. But there was a significant difference between those who were highly religious and those less religious; the more religious were more demanding from brands than the less religious.
When it comes to low involvement consumer products like drinks and soaps, you would imagine that religious affiliation and religiosity should have less of an influence [barring food products that have been explicitly banned]. There are food restrictions across religions. Muslims prefer food products labelled ‘Halal’. We don’t know if Muslim consumers boycott products that are not labelled Halal. There are other categories that also ride the Halal wave. There are several cosmetic brands that are ‘Halal’; L’Oreal even has a factory in Indonesia that is Halal certified.
The use of financial products and services also have a religious flavour. Given that usury is averse to Islam, there has been a growth of what is called ‘Islamic Banking’ and there are Shariah compliant financial products in several countries with significant Muslim population. Some mutual funds, even in India, offer compliance to Shariah guidelines by not investing specific types of companies like those involved in alcohol production. It may surprise readers that devout Muslims are often averse to insurance products.
Financial products are high involvement purchases. At the other end of the spectrum are what are call low involvement products. These are products like soft drinks, chewing gum and deos. Does religion have any role in the purchase of these products?
While there is no published research on the topic of religion and consumption of specific brands of soft drinks and chewing gum, there is ample evidence to show that colas are targeted not because they are or are not Halal or are high involvement. The targeting of colas is more a protest against what is seen as American imperialism.
I suppose brands like Coca Cola and McDonalds are seen as symbols of America that a common consumer can identify with. In this digital age the more ubiquitous symbols of America should be Google, Facebook, Instagram, Wapp, Twitter [now X] etc. But consumers use these, see the posts of their own family and friends… America is invisible in these new age digital brands. Then there is Coca Cola, Pepsi Cola and McDonalds. There is even the “Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention”. This theory was proposed by author Thomas L. Friedman in his 1999 book The Lexus and the Olive Tree. That theory has been violated multiple times in the recent past.
The launch of Gaza Cola is also reminiscent of the cola brand ‘Satatar – Double Seven’ that was launched in 1977 by the Morarji Desai led Janata Government, after it booted out Coca Cola. The brand was marketed by the Govt of India owned Modern Food Industries, makers of Modern Bread. The brand fizzled out just like the coalition government that launched it.
My surmise is that these anti-Coke brands hope to ride on the anti-America sentiment but may not be able to play the long game. Quite simply when a consumer is sipping a can of Coke or Pepsi he or she is not just sipping a highly carbonated, high sugar drink but they are sipping a little bit of America itself. And that bit of fantasy has stood the test of time and will endure.
Appeared originally in Economic Times 8 Dec 2024