Pepsi vs. Coca Cola

Mexico is the largest consumer of soft drinks per capita in the world. For decades Coca Cola has held the monopoly on this soft-drink state, edging out competitors using blatant anti-trust tactics. The dominance of Coca Cola is obvious in Xalapa - on my walk to school I counted 66 Coke ads and only 6 Pepsi ads.

I had a conversation with my host family about Coca Cola, and they told me firmly that Coca Cola has the best flavour - Pepsi is too sweet. Another competitor - Big Cola - came along a few years ago, and gained ground in the market because it sold for much less than Coke. In reaction to the new brand's popularity, Coca Cola began an aggressive marketing campaign and purportedly refused to sell to retailers who carried Big Cola in their stores. This led to a giant anti-trust suit filed by a small store owner who was upset about Coca Cola's demands.

This isn't the first time that the "Cola Wars" have included underhanded tactics. Former Mexican president Vicente Fox was once a truck driver for Coca Cola. (Several years later he became the corporation's Mexican CEO.) In his book "Revolution of Hope", Fox describes how he and other drivers would slash the tires of Pepsi delivery trucks, or conveniently drop Pepsi bottles when restocking the fridges of local vendors.

Pepsi was apparently much more popular for a period in the 1950s and 1960s, when it had a cooler image and a lower price. This prompted the same knee-jerk reaction from Coca Cola executives, who mounted a massive campaign to reconquer the Mexican market.

Fox also talks about Diet Coke, which apparently took much longer to catch on in Mexico. Coca Cola is not only a beverage - for the Mexican poor it is a source of calories to make it through the day. Thus, Diet Coke doesn't make sense to the average Mexican consumer who sees the sugar in Coke as a source of energy, not as an empty carbohydrate.