Cola Wars: Full-Page Ads in The New York Times Challenge & Mock Bloomberg’s Sugary Drink Ban
- Posted on June 12, 2012 at 9:03pm by
Becket Adams
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The CEO of a company that makes do-it-yourself soda kits has protested New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s proposed ban on sugary drinks larger than 16 ounces with a full-page ad in the The New York Times.
Click to enlarge.
SodaStream CEO Daniel Birnbaum‘s open letter to Mayor Bloomberg appeared in Tuesday’s edition of The New York Times. It reads as follows:
Dear Mayor Bloomberg,
We applaud your recent initiative to fight obesity. It’s an issue we can’t ignore. But we don’t believe restricting the size of a soda cup is the answer. We think that a better solution is to give New Yorkers more control over what they drink, not less.
Did you know that New Yorkers are now making soda at home and at the office, with 2/3 fewer calories, and without high fructose corn syrup or aspartame? In fact, they’re using NYC’s finest tap water. Its happening around the world and now it’s in New York.
Here is perhaps the best part. By making their own soda and seltzer, New Yorkers are also helping the environment. Most of the 10 billion soda bottles and cans used in New York every year don’t get recycled. Like empty water bottles, they end up in Staten Island landfills and at the bottom of the Hudson River. But no more.
Smarter choices for a healthier body and a healthier environment are now both possible. New York doesn’t need this legislation. Let the people choose.
Sincerely,
Daniel Birnbaum
CEO, SodaStream
The ad is quite clever, really.
Birnbaum believes the ban is a bad idea and thinks people should be allowed to choose for themselves. So he uses a full-page advertisement to get his point across.
However, and this is the clever part, after grabbing everyone’s attention with a current and relevant topic, he uses the ad to, well, advertise.
Click to enlarge
And if trying to be reasonable with the mayor doesn’t work, there‘s always the Center for Consumer Freedom’s approach (i.e. make fun of him). Here’s the “Nanny Bloomberg” ad they ran in The New York Times last week:
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Comments (58)
Texas_Hawkeye
Posted on June 13, 2012 at 10:34amJust wait, this is comming to all of us soon courtesy of Obama Care. The government will try and regulate every aspect of your life in the name of your “health”. All the while guys like Bloomberg and Obama hang out with their Wagu Beef and personal chefs……. Let them eat cake, they say…..
Report Post »republic2011
Posted on June 13, 2012 at 12:27pmOf course… that’s what we all really feared. Once the government controls a sector of our society, they can then dictate our behavior. If they control healthcare and it is treated as a collective, they can then dictate what you eat/drink, how much you eat/drink, how big you are allowed to become, whether or not to press criminal charges on parents if their kids don’t fit the designated guidelines, etc. Every time we give up our rights, we surrender them to the government and beurocrats, far removed for each of us, will dictate our future. Read the Declaration of Independence and I think you will be very surprised how much of our rights we have given away. We are just about where we were when our forefathers fought for our independence. Honor those that have fallen in the name of freedom and vote this disease out of all offices.. Time the people take their country and their freedoms back.
Report Post »Wolf
Posted on June 13, 2012 at 7:03pmand the sheeple won‘t even care as long as they can have their Dancing with the Stars and Star Search and America’s got Talent… but it has no Balls.
Report Post »RamonPreston
Posted on June 13, 2012 at 10:32pmYou mean CONTROL every aspect of your life.
Report Post »blackyb
Posted on July 7, 2012 at 12:08pmThis mayor is just a hack for Obama’s people. He is a nobody who is using the people of NY for some kind of experimental nannying to see how far they can be pushed. They need to vote his stupid self out.
Report Post »Dismayed Veteran
Posted on June 13, 2012 at 9:48amIf I owned a plastics molding business, I would create a cup one-sixteenth oz less than the 16 oz cup. Can’t beat the free market system.
Report Post »The Gooch
Posted on June 13, 2012 at 8:36amEver have a fat person give you exercise or general health advice? It it is surreal… & happens a helluva lot if you bother to pay attention. I watched Bill Maher this past weekend (I had free HBO & was curious) & he had a tubby little D partsisan (first guy to Maher’s right on the panel) on his show making fun of the “NASCAR” crowd & soda. He didn‘t challenge Bloomberg’s war on food; the tubby leftist was just happy Bloomberg wasn’t attacking the drink of choice of the enlightened: lattes. To Maher’s credit, he said he didn‘t agree with Bloomberg’s food police routine & pointed out this type of garbage is why many people will never trust the left &/or progressives.
Report Post »Hell, I was at a local meeting of mental health providers & the fattest woman in the room was scolding a far less beefy woman on the dangers of drinking soda. My mouth dropped open, but, out of respect for the host, held my tongue. Un-freakin’-believable. I can’t wait to see my buddy (the host) & hear if he picked up on that exchange… he’s another turd in the punch bowl: A conservative working in mental health. The horror!
So this seems to be a matter of do as I say, not as I do. Boring really. And so typical. The state of WV loves to hire fat women to go out and preach against the dangers of tobacco. “Listen up, kids. Don’t smoke. Where are the sandwiches?”
As I’ve said, if you accept a war on drugs, a war on food is to be expected. Govt. assumes it owns you. Hooray.
loriann12
Posted on June 13, 2012 at 9:39amIt’s been proven that “diet” sodas are worse for you than sugar ones. When the body gets an artificial sweetener, it tells itself, Hey, I should have gotten calories with that sugar, so it makes you hungry for more food to get those calories. If you want to lose weight, cut out the artificial sweeteners. I wonder sometimes if they replaced sugar with artificial chemicals just to get us to this point so they could swoop in and tell us to cut out sugar more.
Report Post »Leader1776
Posted on June 13, 2012 at 11:21am@LORIANN12
Report Post »Sorry …… most fat people could drink either sugar or sugar-free and stay fat; skinny people drink either and be skinny; people in the middle where some can control their intake and diet soft-drinks do help them bank calories. It continues to be a complex interplay about how you expend calories than take them in ……… except at the extremes or where there are metabolic issues. This is why, in typical liberal/progressive manner, Bloomberg is such a moron.
lynnissmart
Posted on June 13, 2012 at 7:48amThe only thing that needs to be banned in New York is the pos mayor!!! period…..
Report Post »EP46
Posted on June 13, 2012 at 6:24amBest advertising this company could have ever dreamed up ! Bloomie just gave them the open door and they ran right in ! Great piece of advertisiing !
Report Post »Blazeanswerman
Posted on June 13, 2012 at 12:44amI’d love to see Pepsi and Coke come together and say that they will not distribute their product to NYC until the ban on soft-drinks is lifted. We as the major two soft drink giants and privately owned will no longer distribute any soft drink that is made by our union workers to the City of New York until the ban on so called sugary drinks is lifted. Irony is a btch. NYC would turn on Nanny B in a New York Minute!!!
Report Post »Ramv36
Posted on June 13, 2012 at 6:27pmSeveral large firearms companies have used that exact tactic when dealing with the outrageously restrictive California market. Barrett Firearms, makers of premiere .50BMG military and police rifles, put it upfront on all their advertising now that they will not ship to/sell to, or service existing rifles for anyone in CA, and that includes Military and Police. They basically said if you want the best, move to a sane state!
Report Post »BurntHills
Posted on June 13, 2012 at 12:13amblameberg’s obsession to please his master obama has completed deluded him.
Report Post »RedDawn2012
Posted on June 13, 2012 at 12:03amNanny Gloomberg will be the death of New York yet.
Report Post »FloridaFarmGirl
Posted on June 12, 2012 at 11:52pmNow more of these New Yorker’s will move to Florida and continue trying to make us conform to their ways since where they came from was so great. (Not). Never understood why they come here and want all of this New York crap? Take I-95 North back to where you came from, we’ve had enough of it!!
Report Post »ms2020
Posted on June 12, 2012 at 11:15pmThis is the guy you people in NEW YORK chose to lead you. Not just be the mayor, no much more then that. His job is huge and growing all the time. His responsibilities are growing, your rights are shrinking, but thats just the way it goes when you need to be led. When you need to be told what to do and what not to do by your government.
Report Post »Paul_Vincent_Zecchino
Posted on June 12, 2012 at 11:08pmNanny Bloomberg, who calls the NYPD his ‘thirty thousand man private army’ and who freely boasts of spending his college years in a drug haze, can rightly be called a food fetishist.
Food fetishists often have lots of other charming obssessions, which they enforce against innocent citizens. It was impossible to get near one prominent food fetishist on account of the green cloud of flatulence omnipresent around him, due to his strict vegetarian diet which was heavy on the cabbage.
His name? Adolf Hitler. He too disliked guns in the hands of private citizens. He too was obssessed with what private citizens ate and drank.
Life with food fetishists is never much fun but it can indeed be interesting, in the full sense of the ancient Chinese curse re ‘may you live in interesting times’.
And this sawed-off tyrannical nanny seems determined to make life interesting for the citizens of New York City whom he’s sworn to serve.
Paul VIncent Zecchino
Report Post »Manasota Key, Florida
12 June, 2012
RightPolitically
Posted on June 12, 2012 at 10:56pmLet the people choose? What, are you kidding? The people are too stupid for that. Government is much smarter than those dumb peasants known as citizens. We need to be “mothered” and smothered by NANNY BLOOMBERG. Hey, listen, the guy only means well. He’s sincere…… BUT so was ADOLPH!
Report Post »PoliticallyRightUs.Com
Posted on June 12, 2012 at 10:29pmThis from a mayor who wants to build a mosque right near the twin towers!!!
Report Post »I say fire his A S S ! ! !
love the kids
Posted on June 12, 2012 at 10:24pmWhat about Mika? Does that JUMBO coffee she sucks down have sugar in it? If it does, then she should be stopped from having that also. I wish someone from Starbucks would tell folks that order a large coffee that they can’t have sugar in it.
Report Post »yupperdog
Posted on June 12, 2012 at 10:42pmi am sick and tired of politicians telling us the people what we can and cannot eat or drink!!!!!!!!!!!!! why do they want to rule us so bad. it just makes me want to go out and drink more coke!!!!!!!!!!!!!! what bunch of fools. get off my back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Report Post »Stoic one
Posted on June 13, 2012 at 1:27amyupperdog
I think this attitude from our politicians is the primary cause of so many people acting on their second amendment right to bear arms; and the possible consequences of said politicians actions.
Report Post »love the kids
Posted on June 12, 2012 at 10:20pmI visited NYC for the first and last time 3 weeks ago. I am 43 YO and my brother had lived there for 9 years. What a disgusting example of a city. I do wonder why Bloomberg doesn’t ban traffic jams. I couldn’t help wonder about the amount of pollution was being spewed into the air from vehicles that need to make an actual 10 minute trip, but the trip takes 1:45 minutes. It was practically like daylight at 10:00 at night, another waste of money and source of pollution. And WHY DON”T YOU HAVE GARBAGE CANS ANYWHERE??? I can’t think of an area that contributes more to wasting energy than NYC. But, they will put coke out of business.
Report Post »Heres an idea, why don’t these companies for once grow a set and STOP SELLING THEIR PRODUCT ALTOGETHER there and just deal with it.
The-Monk
Posted on June 12, 2012 at 10:07pmThe Nanny ad is just too precious. However, the headline should read…
“You can’t buy a 32oz soda but I can buy a sub THIS BIG”.
Report Post »RJJinGadsden
Posted on June 12, 2012 at 10:19pmHey Monk, good one. I just like that picture of Nanny Bloomberg.
Report Post »Tractorboy
Posted on June 12, 2012 at 10:05pmDear Mr. Soda-Stream guy, brace your self because Dumberg, will come after you and your magic soda making machine, you sir may be responsible for a total prohibition of NYC soda and any such paraphenalia to create such dangerous and thirst quenching drinks. How dare you try to put your thumb in eye of a man who only cares about the health and welfare of his people. Obviously you soda guy have to be some sort of tea party rebel, (I like it, keep up the good work).
Report Post »Magyar
Posted on June 12, 2012 at 9:59pmLet’s see how liberal azz New Yorkers like losing their right to choose along with their freedoms!
Report Post »marhee9
Posted on June 12, 2012 at 10:09pmThere was a lady on TV this morning who said the answer is placing a 1 cent tax per fluid ounce of all sugary drinks. She went on to say that drinking sugary drinks is a privilege not a right. If the liberal movement was on the other side of the issue, sugary drinks would be a “right,” and taxing it would prove that you’re a racist who hates the poor. It’s the beauty of the liberal mindset.
Report Post »http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OPf1dK-qlE
wisehiney
Posted on June 12, 2012 at 9:47pmY’all city folks would be a whole lot better off drinking TEA!
Report Post »bobbyjoe
Posted on June 12, 2012 at 10:05pmWe make about a gallon a day here. My favorite drink.
Report Post »The-Monk
Posted on June 12, 2012 at 10:15pmI make “Yogi Tea” from a 5000 year old recipe. Here’s the closest online recipe I can find.
http://www.kundaliniyoga.name/yogitea.html
Never tried it with oregano, you can substitute the milk for more water and it doesn’t need the honey if you are limiting a sugar (like) intake.
Report Post »RJJinGadsden
Posted on June 12, 2012 at 10:17pmSame here, keep plenty on hand. The wife is diabetic so we keep it unsweetened. About the only thing that we really both agree on all of the time. She uses an artificial sweetener, and I drink it straight with a touch of lemon or lime juice sometimes.
Report Post »LOL, I’ve made solar tea in Germany before and have a number of Germans spot the two gallon jar and wander over to ask what I was doing. I was able to teach a few Germans how to enjoy a glass of iced tea on a warm day.
RJJinGadsden
Posted on June 12, 2012 at 10:25pmMonk, that sounds like an interesting hot brew for the winter time. I keep a number of teas around here for the winter. But, usually just Liptons for iced tea.
Report Post »The-Monk
Posted on June 12, 2012 at 10:41pmI make Yogi Tea by the gallon.
1 gal distilled water
32 Cardamon Pods
24 Cloves
24 Black peppercorns
2 Cinnamon sticks broken in two
Dried Ginger chunks or slices to taste (about one teaspoon) Too little or too much is bad.
The added tea is for color and used for special occasions with milk.
Boil for about 45 minutes on low heat. Can be served hot or cold. Hot only for special occasions.
Buy the ingredients at your local Indian store…much cheaper, fresher and the Cinnamon is way cheaper.
Enjoy!
Report Post »The-Monk
Posted on June 12, 2012 at 10:49pmI forgot to add one one more tip.
If you use milk and/or tea leaves, wait until after boiling and add them in last.
Report Post »RamonPreston
Posted on June 13, 2012 at 10:31pmI had a tea recipe once but I couldn’t do it. It said “Take a clean dish…..” (Bachelor joke.)
Report Post »lukerw
Posted on June 12, 2012 at 9:38pmHey… Cola Companies: HOW IS ALL THAT LIBERAL SUPPORT working for YOU?
Report Post »Sirfoldallot
Posted on June 12, 2012 at 9:45pmIs NY state trying to get rid of ppl ?
Report Post »RJJinGadsden
Posted on June 12, 2012 at 10:18pmSIRFOLDALLOT, Nah, just their tax base.
Report Post »Inlightofthings
Posted on June 13, 2012 at 8:22amSIRFOLDALOT:
They must be…3.5 million have departed in the last 10 years. At a mere $60,000 income, that is $210,000,000,000 in lost taxes and commerce annually. No sweat, they’ll make it up at the toll booths…
Report Post »Maxim Crux
Posted on June 12, 2012 at 9:28pmDear Mr Bloomberg, your an idiot!
Report Post »possom
Posted on June 12, 2012 at 9:27pmI can‘t believe new yorker’s haven’t tar and feathered this jack&^%.
Report Post »The Gooch
Posted on June 13, 2012 at 8:43amMany are ready and willing to bleet “I understand why he did this.” Authority figures can get people to accept actions and orders with unnerving readiness. Do a quick search on the Milgram experiment.
Report Post »In brief, like it or not, if you depend on gub’ment for health care, then to some extent, govt. will claim ownership of you. Its agents are holding the purse strings. I’m all for fatties being made to own their choices. But, as usual, instead of using govt. as a scalpel, it is used as a sledge.
ALL must be treated like children and criminals… because you want to be fair in your authoritarian mandates. Wouldn’t want to hurt the feelings of any fatties or parasites, now would we?
TRONINTHEMORNING
Posted on June 12, 2012 at 9:26pmI bet the Times hated printing that ad; the libs that they are. Ha!
Report Post »lynnissmart
Posted on June 13, 2012 at 8:16amAnd a hardy, har, har! (Jackie Gleason)!
Report Post »wisehiney
Posted on June 12, 2012 at 9:18pmSome people make better cigarettes at home too.
Report Post »inmyhumbleopinion
Posted on June 12, 2012 at 9:09pmHe Larry Us.
Let the games begin!
Report Post »