Mecca-cola: communication failure or unsuccessful provocation?

I’ve discovered the existence of Mecca-cola only recently, while I was doing researches to feed this blog: that’s an alternative drink for Coke launched in France by Tawfik Mathlouthi in November 2002, while the anti American feeling was raising in a few places in the world. The slogan is simple: "No more drinking stupid, drink with commitment". It is all about combating "America's imperialism and Zionism by providing a substitute for American goods and increasing the blockade of countries boycotting American goods," Mr Mathlouthi told BBC News Online.

That was a typical French provocation, and probably a smart way to do an ethnic communication “a la francaise”… But it seems that it’s been a short-term media buzz, not leading to a big change in drinking attitudes, even in Muslim communities; and even if in January 2003 two million bottles, each holding 1.5 litres, had already been sold, and the drink was being exported to Britain, Germany, Belgium, Italy and Spain. Some of my friends have heard of this and some, like me, haven’t. So is that the French ethnic PR limit? An attempt to specifically target an ethnic community not followed up by fear of threatening the national cohesion?

I guess the product was probably a bit too provocative, even in a country like France that loves being the troublemaker. I think the media coverage was not that big because that would have questioned too much the integration of the Muslim community, not talking about the Jewish one…

I personally like the Mecca-cola idea, but who knows? Maybe I’d feel uncomfortable drinking it in Paris with a Muslim guy who would be proud to display his religious and political views, strongly linked with his ethnic origins, and would be defiantly looking at the other table where people would be drinking coke…I could think this could lead to some unnecessary aggressiveness, and that maybe anti Americanism could easily turn into some anti Occidentalism…

Source:

BBC News Online