Have a Coke and a smile? Miffed Ukrainians say 'no thanks'
Coca-Cola (KO) may be learning that international diplomacy is best left out of advertising.
The soda giant has angered both Ukrainians and Russians with an advertisement that had a seemingly cheerful and simple message, given that it wished happy holidays to the company's Russian customers.
Where the advertisement went wrong was in a red-and-white stylized map of Russia, which at first didn't include Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that was annexed by Russia from Ukraine in 2014 and led to Western sanctions. After complaints from some Russian customers, the ad was revised to include Crimea.
That's when Ukrainians started complaining that things were definitely not going better with Coke.
"I guess that is a predictable answer from a company driven solely by greed and money," wrote one Ukrainian on Facebook, who included an image of a can of Coke wedged inside Russian President Vladimir Putin's mouth. "Well, Coke, I will never buy your products again until you apologize and publicly declare Crimea to be at best the undisputed Ukrainian land or at least the Ukrainian territory which is contested by Russia."
Other Ukrainians are organizing a boycott of Coca-Cola, asking fellow citizens to stop buying Coke-made products, including its eponymous soda, Sprite, Schweppes-branded drinks, and other goods.
On top of the boycott, the Ukrainian embassy to the U.S. is speaking out about the advertisement. In a statement posted on its website, the embassy said it had "expressed its concerns to the Coca-Cola company and the U.S. Department of State about the posting in social media by Coca-Cola's Russian office of a map of Russia that included the illegally occupied Crimea."
Coke, for its part, has removed the ad and apologized for the map, which it said was altered without its approval or knowledge.
"The Coca-Cola Russia team had a stylized map of Russia created as part of its Christmas campaign. The agency that created the map later made changes without our knowledge or approval," the company said in a statement to CBS MoneyWatch. "We, as a company, do not take political positions unrelated to our business, and we apologize for the post, which we have removed."