Thursday, July 12, 2012

Soda Wars

Our local movie theater, the Midway, gets in on the soda ban controversy:



3 comments:

  1. I'm so glad that Midway finally embraces freedom of (beverage) choice! Finally, I can bring in outside drinks that they don't sell without fear of discrimination! Like Boylan's or Izzy or Dr. Brown's. Thank you Midway. Thank you so very much. For too long, we in the movie-going community thought that you only cared about making money with we envisioned to be grossly overpriced sodas. We thought that paying $5 for something that sold elsewhere for 50 cents was merely about greed. Little did we know that you were investing that money in FREEDOM!

    Frankly, I can't imagine a world where retailers are expected to sell products with any form of responsibility. It's on us purchasers to temper ourselves or be condemned to an eternity of suffering for gluttony. Was God not asked, in Genesis 4-9: Am I my brother's keeper? To which God replied: "good point."

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  2. The so-called ban on large sugared beverages is absurd. But equally absurd are the people who consume these large drinks. It's embarrassing to see them holding a drink almost as large as they are.

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  3. LOL, let me know how that works for you Jon (sneaking your Dr. Brown Cream Soda in to the Midway).

    I'd prefer not to get in to a political discussion so I'll keep my opinion to myself for now on the actual ban. What I will say is that the more press around this issue, the better.

    The bottom line is that when you educate consumers on nutrition, they make better choices. There was a study out of Stanford University a while back following the calorie postings that food chains had on consumers Starbuck's purchases.

    The results of that study were as follows:

    When calorie information was available to consumers, the average calories per transaction fell by 6%. The effect was almost entirely related to changes in consumers' food choices - there was almost no change in purchases of beverage calories. There was no impact on Starbucks profit on average.

    The study also estimated that revenue actually increased by 3% at Starbucks stores located within 100 meters of a Dunkin Donuts (an important competitor to Starbucks in NYC). Hence, there is evidence that calorie posting may have caused some consumers to move away from Dunkin Donuts toward Starbucks. The fact that Starbucks profitability is unaffected by calorie posting is consistent with the finding that consumers' beverage choices are unchanged, which is of course Starbucks core business.

    So, whether you're for the ban or against it, keep chatting it up. It seems that folks who are against the ban still have strong (negative) opinions about the amount of sugary drinks being consumed.

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