What do you do if you’re trying to sell the most unhealthy product in the universe?
You do what Coca Cola is doing. You try to fool your customers. In their new “Calorie Dictionary” ad they’re really hoping that nobody stops to think.
Here’s the problem:
Coca Cola logic
By the simplistic Coca-Cola calorie logic all you need to do is burn the calories you ingest and everything will be fine. It’s not necessarily that simple, but let’s accept it today.
One small bottle (12 oz) of coke is 160 calories:
Five minutes
In the ad Coca Cola shows how many calories are burned doing different activities. Briefly at the start of the ad they mention that the numbers are for 5 minutes of the activity. The problem? Most of the activites they later show take about 5 seconds. Coca Cola hopes that we won’t notice the difference.
The always great Dr Yoni Freedhoff noticed though. Here’s a few added comments on the Coca Cola math:
Hug!
Hug your friends for 5 minutes = 7 cals.
One small bottle of Coca Cola = hug your friends for 114 minutes. If they’re still smiling they must be really good friends.
Run!
Chased by angry dog for 5 minutes = 28 cals.
One small bottle of Coca Cola = being chased by angry dog for 29 minutes. Don’t get caught and eaten.
Zip!
Zip up your dress for 5 minutes = 12 cals.
One small bottle of Coca Cola = zip up your dress continously for 67 minutes. Hopefully you won’t dislocate you shoulder.
Shout!
Shout loudly for 5 minutes = 13 cals.
One small bottle of Coke = shout loudly for 62 minutes. It could be painful.
By the way, look at this guy’s teeth. Clearly he’s not drinking Coca Cola.
Another way
If you don’t want to spend an hour or two every day hugging, zipping, running and shouting every chance you get, just to burn the sugar from one small bottle of Coke, there is another way.
Don’t drink it.