You’d think Coca-Cola wouldn’t need to bother with adverts. Their cans and bottles of fizzy, sugar-water are already sold all over the world and being drunk in the millions, why bother with all the billboards and posters when there’s not much in the way of competition? But that’s not enough for a global, conglomerated modern-day empire, if Coca-Cola don’t continue to beam their brand at us we might briefly forget about them and buy Pepsi instead, and that would just be terrible. So here are some of the high(low)lights of their efforts to indoctrinate us to Choose Choice, Open Happiness and Drink Coca-Cola.

In Coca-Cola’s own words: ” ‘Brotherly Love’ captures the unique relationship between brothers, a universal story of love and conflict. Ultimately the younger brother finds himself without his Coca-Cola. The older brother comes to his rescue and they enjoy a special moment together.” I hadn’t realised that Coke did universal stories of love and conflict but really I’d say this is a story about bullying – the elder brother bullies his younger brother at every possible opportunity – stamping on his feet, pushing his cap down and stealing the umbrella. However, if there’s one thing he can’t stand, it’s other people bullying his younger brother when he could be. Hence, he scares them off and then makes his little brother spill his Coke down his t-shirt. So, just to clarify, this advert has nothing to do with ‘brotherly love’ but is actually about condoning bullying and imaginative ways to addict the next generation to fizzy, sugar-water.

This has to be my favourite. Stuck as we are in the gruelling reality of late capitalism, where recessions run longer and deeper, inequality rises and as it does a whole host of prejudices we thought were gone come back. Add to this the effects rampant consumerism has on the environment and we’ve got climate change, resource depletion and land grabs. Yet despite all this Coca-Cola ploughs on in selling us its sugar-water. And here’s a handy advert to remind us which ones there are (in case we’d forgotten): the original, the diet-one, the no-calories-one which is the diet-one rebranded for men (it’s black after all and has a number in the name) and the supposedly-natural-one (aka, the oxymoron-one). But it’s the message at the end “CHOOSE CHOICE” in big, bold letters which does it for me. I mean it’s bad enough that consumer capitalism results  in so many human and environmental rights abuses but now freedom has been narrowed down to selecting one of four fizzy, sugar-water drinks. Did Emmeline Pankhurst, Martin Luther King and Ghandi really strive so hard just for us to have access to a range of soft drinks? But, worse than that, the phrase “choose choice” reveals that choice is also up for grabs, as if one day soon we won’t be able to choose at all – maybe the day when Coca-Cola instead of water is coming out of our taps whether we like it or not.

And last but by no means least it’s the Coca-Cola does Christmas advert. Coke basically invented the Santa we know and love – they changed the colour of Saint Nicholas’ outfit from green to red, they added some weight to him and put a bottle of delicious, sparkling, black gloop in his hands. And kids all over the world love him and believe in him, worshipping him almost like a deity – a false idol if ever there was one. I hate to say it but Coca Cola really are having the last laugh. Ho, ho, ho! Unless, of course, we stop buying their tasty and addictive fizzy, sugar-water.