Thats right! As fellow blog The Consumerist states,"no, not that kind. Coca-Cola." Earlier this week, a local newspaper of Sweden reported that a woman (who wishes to remain anonymous) living in Malmö will be seeking inpatient treatment for her addiction to the Coca-Cola beverage. Her addiction has caused a variety of health problems, such as diabetes and high blood pressure.

Momlogic, another blog, states that originally local health authorities recognized her health problem but did not think it was appropriate for her to receive inpatient treatment. Recently, the Administrative Court of Appeals ruled that the woman's addiction to the beverage should be treated at an inpatient facility.

I'm still wondering whether or not this is bogus. It seems to me that there could have been many other causes of this woman's poor health besides her Coca-Cola intake. For example, what else is she consuming and what is her medical history? Check out the poll below to let us know what you think.

Coca-Cola will begin selling products made with Stevia, a zero-calorie sweetener derived from an herb that's gained a following in the heath food community despite not yet being approved by the FDA. Three flavors of Odwalla juice sweetened with a Stevia product called Rebiana are expected to hit the market this week.

Pepsi also has two Stevia-sweetened drinks ready for the market, but they say they won't start selling them until FDA gives Stevia the official OK. The FDA is expected to approve Stevia as "generally regarded as safe" any time now.

Coke hopes that Stevia, which is often described as "all natural" (whatever that means), will help reverse the decline in sales of soft drinks.

I've had Stevia sweetener before, and it didn't taste a whole lot different to me than other artificial sweeteners. But then, I'm a die-hard Diet Coke drinker, so I may not be the target audience.

Has anyone else tasted Stevia? Thoughts?

A few months back, I read Lovemarks, a book about the future of corporate branding. Written by Kevin Roberts, the CEO of Saatchi and Saatchi, the book explored the hard-core loyalty that some customers feel for certain brands. As a Crest kid, a Tom Petty fan and an intense devotee of Kosciusko mustard, I can absolutely attest to the power of brand devotion; on the other hand, as a former Ben and Jerry's booster, I also know just how easy it is for a brand to destroy that relationship.

Of course, the ultimate example of a disastrous rebranding is Coca-Cola's 1985 decision to change its formula. As customers rebelled, the company tried to explain that numerous blind taste tests had revealed that New Coke was a more popular flavor. The mob, of course, was unmoved and, within three months, Coke was back to its old blend.

It's worth noting that Coke's originial justification for changing recipes was its competition with Pepsi. Now, a little over twenty years later, Pepsi is investing in a little rebranding of its own, with a new logo and a new can design. Starting in November, the company will be unrolling a $1.2 billion worldwide campaign to launch its fresh look.

So. Diet Coke kills sperm on contact. We thought you should know.

We feel sort of shocked, and also sort of remarkably unshocked.

Scientist Deborah Anderson and her team have been awarded one of this year's Ig Nobel Awards from Improbable Research for their work on both Coca Cola Classic and Diet Coke's contraceptive qualities.

Will this knowledge ever come in handy? Well, with a desperate situation and a little yoga, anything is possible. Never say never, right? Okay, yeah, maybe this once.

Other things we bet kill sperm: Jagermeister, Ramen Noodle broth, Tang, and everything at Taco Bell.

Even though it's been sold in Japan for more than 50 years, Coca-Cola has only just received trademark recognition for its iconic bottle. The elongated hourglass bottle became a registered U.S. trademark in 1960 and is honored by Russia and China, among other nations.

Coca-Cola began fighting for Japanese trademark registration of its "contour bottle" back in 2003. Other shapes associated with pop culture and American food, notably Kentucky Fried Chicken's Colonel Sanders, have won Japanese trademarks. What made the Coke case different is the fact that its bottle has no lettering whatsoever. In fact, it's the first bottle sans lettering to receive a trademark in that country.

For some reason this case begs the question: Is Sapporo's silver 22-ounce can a registered Japanese trademark? If not, it should be, I find the tapered can as evocative and iconic as Coca-Cola's classic bottle.

I'm not sure why this isn't just called National Soda Day or something similar, but I guess there are some carbonated, caffeinated beverages that aren't soda (?).

Since soda drinkers usually have their favorite sodas and don't usually stray away from it (I'm a Diet Pepsi guy after a long affair/distraction with Diet Coke), maybe we can take this day to try a carbonated, caffeinated beverage that we've never tried or maybe one we haven't had in years. I'm going to have some Dr Pepper and see if it still tastes like it did the last time I had it, during the Reagan administration I believe.

Seems like Coca-Cola is coming full circle some 120 years after its invention by druggist John Stith Pemberton.

Well, sort of.

Yesterday the soft-drink giant unveiled the Coca-Cola Research Center for Chinese Medicine in Beijing.

Coca-Cola has set up a lab to experiment with new Chinese herbal flavors for Coke and other beverage products. It's the first international company to open such a facility at the China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences. Coca-Cola plans to have its researchers develop beverages using Chinese herbal ingredients and formulas.

A Coca-Cola spokesperson had this to say "This collaboration will ultimately help us bring the insights and benefits of traditional Chinese medicine to consumers all over the world." And it should probably give them a bit more cred than Vitamin Water. Though to be frank, I'm not quite sure I'm ready for Diet Coke with ginseng.

We've all opened up a bottle of soda and have it get warm on us as it sits on the table. But what if there was a technology that actually made the drink stay cold even after you open it?

Coca-Cola is experimenting with a bottle that chills on the inside after you twist off the cap. They have to be stored in special vending machines so this is probably not something you'll be able to get at any supermarket. The bottle could be used on a new drink called Sprite Super Chill, which is going to be released in the UK later this year. No word yet on any use in the US anytime soon.

[via Boing Boing]

You all know that I have a serious Diet Coke addiction, right?

Well, if you didn't, now you do, and I have absolutely no intention of going into rehab for it. I have "quit" many a vice of my wild and trashy days, but Diet Coke is the one thing that I intend to hang onto to keep my life interesting.

However, I do know how horribly horrible the stuff is. Dark soda stains your teeth. Any soda wears down your enamel. The carbonation causes bloating. The caffeine causes jitters. There probably isn't a single good thing about Diet Coke.

Until now. I am talking about vitamins. Coca Cola has extended its Diet Coke line with Diet Coke Plus, which we mentioned at the end of last year. The soda isn't a drink to compete with the multitude of energy drinks out there, but something to ameliorate the damage of drinking nothing but trash (that's not part of the marketing, just my opinion) with added vitamins and minerals. I was skeptical about how much better for my health this would really be, and even moreso, about the taste (does anyone remember the disastrophe that was "New Coke?")

Following right in the footsteps of Coca Cola, Pepsico has just announced that they, too, will be adding caffeine content labels to their drinks. The labeling change comes conveniently at the same time as Pepsi is changing the look of their cans in general.

With two major beverage companies on board this new labeling trend, it sets the standard for other soft drink (or "sparkling beverage") manufacturers to add caffeine amounts to their packaging, as well as just to their ingredient lists. Making this information easily available draws attention to the fact that the FDA regulates the amount of caffeine that can be added to products (.02%), as well as to the fact that there are many groups that recommend an upper limit foe caffeine consumption per day The American Dietetic Association recommends no more than 300mg per day, for example.

We don't necessarily think that caffeine will become the next "hot" issue, as there is simply too much to worry about with foie gras and trans fats at the moment, but you never know...

Advertising companies and politicians like to play with semantics for the purpose of changing images. Big soda companies seem to be heavily invested in changing their images this year - with Pepsi completely revamping their packaging and Coke teaming up witt Jay-Z to promote Coke Zero - so it isn't entirely shocking to hear that they no longer want soda to be thought of as "carbonated soft drinks." Instead, they're "sparkling beverages."

In what some might describe as a blending of advertising and politics, the name change represents some social climbing on the part of soda companies. They are trying to distance themselves from their high-calorie, junk food roots, which politicians and other people in positions of power continually hold against them. Unfortunately for the cola companies, soda is so popular that no matter what Coke and Pepsi executives decide to call it, changing the name for the product to "sparkling beverage" is like trying to change the word for "beer": it's just not going to happen.

Energy Fiend has a great caffeine content database that can give you the exact amount of caffeine in just about any drink you could want to know about. It is a great resource because, although drinks containing caffeine make it clear in the ingredients list, they don't list the actual amount of caffeine that they contain. Coca-Cola, perhaps taking a cue from E.F. is hoping to make getting this information easier for consumers by adding labels to all of their products indicating their exact caffeine content.

Such labels are already found on Enviga (8.33 mg/oz.) and Full Throttle (8.81 mg/oz.) and Coca-Cola Classic (2.83mg/oz.) cans will have it by May, with the rest of the beverage lineup - including Diet Coke (3.75mg/oz.) to follow over the rest of the year, though the labels will not be put onto the bottles and cans of Coca-Cola products sold outside of the US.

For comparison, drip coffee (black) has 18.13mg caffeine/oz., Red Bull has 9.64mg/oz. and regular black tea has 5.88mg/oz.

Fast food restaurants are all about convenience: the convenience of getting inexpensive food quickly and not having to cook. McDonald's, long the standard of fast food, has decided to consider making a move to an even more convenient format. Modeling their change on convenience stores, McDonald's is test marketing the concept of selling prepackaged drinks in their stores. The products include sodas, sports and energy drinks from Pepsi (even though McDonald's carries Coke in their soda fountains), such as Mountain Dew, Red Bull, Gatorade, Propel Water, Lipton tea and Tropicana juices, all of which are stocked in a large, convenience store-style refrigerated case.

According to a Morgan Stanley research report, 62% of consumers "said they would drink different beverage at quick service restaurants if given the choice." McDonald's says that it is too early to judge consumer response in their Texas and Kansas City test stores, but is considering expanding the offerings and the test markets if it is positive.

Pepsi is reworking their image and giving the look of their brand a total overhaul. The plan features a "360-degree marketing campaign", but the first thing that most consumers will notice is that their cans will look very different than before. Starting next month, the company will begin using more dramatic designs on their cans, bottles and branded cups and will be rotating the designs every few weeks to "reflect themes close to the hearts of teens and young adults." The theory is that younger consumers will be more interested in something more visually stimulating than their current design and that if there is a sports or music-themed can, a music fan might be more likely to purchase it. The logo itself will not change, but since Pepsi has only changed their can design 10 times in the 109 year history of the company, this new plan is quite a departure from tradition.

Also in pursuit of the drinking loyalties of the "millennial generation," the company will be running more contests, games and sweepstakes and will be sinking more money into merchandising (did you know that you can buy a Pepsi dress?) and advertising. Different contests and prize-winning opportunities will be associated with the different Pepsi products, giving consumers "different experience each time they buy a Pepsi" and "a passport to the things they enjoy most." Oh, and they'll be getting Pepsi, too.

If you had put money on the fact that Coke Zero would have fallen flat by now, as so many other remakes of favorite colas have in the past, there is a good chance that you would have lost your bet. Coca-Cola is planning to give the zero-calorie brand a big push this year to raise its profile and to try and make the brand a standard choice for cola drinkers ("[build] it into the next mega-brand," according to a company memo), not just an alternative to Coca Cola Classic.

The first part o the strategy is to sink a lot of money into the advertising budget. Coke is planning to spend $13 million on advertising during, and at, NCAA games alone, since its target audience is men up to age 45 or so who want a zero-calorie drink without the perceived girliness of Diet Coke. The company is also planning black packaging, football sponsorships and TV ads on "24" and MTV. To show exacty how serious they are about the brand, Coke is also actively recruiting restaurants to make Coke Zero a part of their soda fountain lineup. Wendy's and White Castle are two that have already agreed.