Pepsi vs. Coke: Corporate America’s battles are familiar to most these days.In almost every aspect of your life, you eat, drink and even breathe something that belongs to a bigger leviathan than you could possibly imagine. The goliath is consumer- product companies.
These corporations make billions of dollars a year selling their products to you the consumer. What you might not know is that they’ve worked pretty hard at reeling you in, because there is no institution small enough to escape their influence, including our own campus.
PCC is an all Pepsi college. If you haven’t noticed, check out the vending machines or just take a look at the beverage selection the next time you’re in one of the snack bars on campus. Other than Pepsi, you will see Mountain Dew, Gatorade and even bottled Starbucks frappuccinos – all Pepsi owned. Even beloved Aquafina water belongs to Pepsi.
No Coca Cola for us. Why you ask?
It may well be one of the most legendary and well known rivalries of our time, Pepsi sv. Coca Cola. In an effort to steamroll eachother, both companies vigorously pursue exclusive vending contracts with colleges.
Contract deals usually include a certain amount of financial support from the companies in return for exclusive product placement on campuses over a certain number of years.
So let’s say you’re fresh out of high school, expanding your educational horizon at a “Pepsi college.” Suddenly your beloved coca cola – which by then you have developed an emotional attachment to – is no longer available, so you are forced to choose the alternative Pepsi for the next two to four years.
By the end of your college experience you’ve turned into a Pepsi-addict, which is exactly what the company wishes to gain as part of its investment in your school. Sneaky huh?
Recently the campus introduced Seattle’s Best Coffee as an alternative to the generic bean brew served in the past. The coffee itself is based from the café of the same name founded in Seattle, Washington, in 1970.
If you try a cup you’ll find that it’s pretty good, a smooth taste with just the right amount of robust aroma. For caffeine addicts like me, those who don’t have the time to make it to Starbucks before their next class can enjoy a quality latte, mocha or just a simple drip.
If you’re still prejudice against non-Starbucks coffees, I’ll let you in on an interesting fact, Starbucks owns Seattle’s Best. Yes, back in the day when both companies were fairly unknown to most, they were rivals. Though Starbucks was born a year later than Seattle’s Best, it eventually grew more in popularity and prestige, which led to its eventual corporate coup d’état.
Even if you’re not making the stroll down to Bonnie Street to fork out your $4.10 on a Grande Frappuccino, Starbucks is still making a pretty penny off the cup of joe you get on your way to the C-building.
It’s pretty easy to see the pattern of inevitable monopolies that form among big corporations.
We see it happening everywhere, mergers of software companies, TV networks, movie studios, and almost all other forms of mass communications. So it’s not really a huge shock when we realize that no foundation is too small to escape becoming part of that huge battlefield on which the war between competing product mergers is waged.
It may be that most studentsdon’t care that we’re feeding these huge monster corporations, just so long as we get our coffee in the morning.
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