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Alsumaria News – International
A costly advertising campaign launched by Coca-Cola and featuring a well-known South Asian television actor has failed to achieve its goals, The Washington Post reports.
The US company’s sales fell as a result of the boycott movement against Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip following the unprecedented Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7.
Some of the companies targeted by the campaign, such as Coca-Cola, are seen as taking favorable stances toward Israel, and some are said to have financial ties to Israel or investments there.
As the movement began to spread, calls for boycotts circulated on social media expanded to dozens of companies and products in the Middle East and Asia, prompting shoppers to turn to local alternatives.
Major US brands such as Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Starbucks and KFC have seen sales decline in regions where Gaza-related boycotts are taking place, The Washington Post reported.
The newspaper said McDonald’s shares fell about 4% in February last year after it announced that weak sales in the Middle East had caused it to miss its fourth-quarter revenue targets.
In January, Starbucks reported quarterly earnings and revenue that fell short of Wall Street expectations due to what Chief Executive Officer Lakshman Narasimhan called “headwinds” such as a boycott over the Gaza war.
In Bangladesh, after its sales fell by about 23%, Coca-Cola tried to reverse the trend with an ad in which the famous actor Sharaf Ahmed Gibon played the role of a shopkeeper, assuring customers that Coca-Cola was not an Israeli product and that it was related to Islamic society.
The ad was filmed in a crowded market in Bangladesh, with shop owners touting Coca-Cola’s global appeal and saying rumors that the product is made in Israel are misleading.
“Listen, guys! Coca-Cola doesn’t come from that place at all,” he can be heard saying in the video, without explicitly mentioning Israel.
“People in 190 countries have been drinking Coca-Cola for the past 138 years,” he said. “They drink Coca-Cola in Turkey, Spain and Dubai. There is even a Coca-Cola factory in Palestine.”
But the Palestinian factory is located in an Israeli settlement in East Jerusalem, which is considered illegal under international law.
The claim drew immediate condemnation and sparked more anger at Coca-Cola, which pulled the ad from all its channels and social media accounts.
Actors who took part in the ad have also received death threats.
In its first comments on the controversy, the company told The Washington Post that the event was an unfortunate mistake.
Scott Leith, the company’s vice president of global strategic communications, added: “As a global brand, we work with local franchisees to serve local communities. We realize the latest video did not live up to expectations and for that we apologize,” adding that the video “has been removed from all platforms.”
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