Business Recommendations for Coca Cola Kenya

Bruno Pietracci

President

Coca-Cola’s Southern & East Africa Business Unit (SEABU)

Dear Mr. Pietracci,

I’m writing to you from lovely Laikipia Kenya with some business pointers.  I am but a safari guide and while I know you have the best marketing teams on earth at your disposal, I might still offer some thoughts for the direction of your brand.

As a child in the 1970s I remember Coca Cola’s advertising with fondness and nostalgia.  There was always a theme of unity and togetherness that built the idea that the future was bright. People from all over the world were enjoying a coke from your iconic glass bottles and the imagery and message was always spellbinding and inspiring.

Today the same sort of adds don’t catch me like they once did. In fact, sadly, they turn me off completely. The reason for my change of outlook, the millions of tons of plastic pollution you are responsible for. 

Here in Kenya plastic bottles choke river ways and they have become ubiquitous in all the cities as well as the countryside.  Forbes magazine has identified your own company as the most significant polluter in this regard. That is a very unfortunate distinction.

In 2017 when the Kenyan government threatened to ban plastic bottles, like they had done for plastic bags, your own company moved rapidly to put into place a program that was intended to subsidize plastic collection and recycling.  The program might have been a good one if it had been suggested for a country with the infrastructure to facilitate the processing and transport of the plastic but Kenya and most Africa countries simply do not have those resources. We’re you not aware of that?

Some activists have suggested that Coca Cola was disingenuous when in haste it spent 3.8 Billion Kenya Shillings on PETCO, the government-partnered plan, that they say had little likelihood of success.  I really want to believe otherwise.

Photo/PD/ROY LUMBE

When I was a kid visiting Kenya in the 1970s and 80s it was always a highlight to be sipping a cold Coke from a classic glass bottle.  The product always tasted better en route to safari and adventure and the bottles that thankfully still exist today, harken to a more wholesome past.

I hope that your company might be able to foresee that the activism about your plastic pollution is only going to get worse for your brand.  The plastic problem is not going to go away on its own and more of your customers each year will know that your company is the leading cause of their clogged waterways , beaches and roadsides.  The association between Coca Cola’s brand and the fossil fuel industry’s plastic will only get more and more fortified in customer perception. A recent New York times article on Big Oil lobbying US trade negotiation with Kenya to reverse its limits on plastic is obscene and I would tend to think any association with such contemptuous actors is bad business.

Why not cut the criticism short and return to a product experience that was better? Why not, in some markets that lack the recycling infrastructure, return to a product that had been profitable for many decades?  The glass bottling plant infrastructure is still in place and it is still widely used. If you were sitting by the beautiful Kenyan coast watching a dhow sail past, would you rather have a Coke in a glass or a plastic bottle? I know it’s the former.

By making the gesture you will be moving the entire market to a better, more sustainable place and directly improving many people’s lives. In the process you might also discover a pride in your product that extends beyond your own paycheck.

Sincerely, 

James Christian

PS Also, If you make the change we would be happy to welcome Coke to shoot advertising free of charge on our property and with our camels and team at your disposal. Karibu Kenya!