Note to Coca-Cola innovators: Can it
By Beth Teitell
Thursday, June 23, 2005

You know what I hate? When major corporations - like, say, Coca-Cola - mess with the very consumers who make their fat paychecks possible.

Yeah, that's right. I'm talking about the new Diet Cokes the company's unleashed on a trusting public.

In case you've been too busy following Saddam's breakfast menu to pay attention to such domestic matters, there's now a Diet Coke sweetened with Splenda, and a Coca-Cola Zero. That's a diet cola sweetened with both aspartame and acesulfame potassium - and desperate to shed its ``diet'' stigma.

And who knows what other versions will have metastasized by the time this paper hits newsstands today? Diet Coke with fiber?

Already we've been hit by Diet Coke with Lime, Diet Coke with Lemon, Diet Cherry Coke and the most feared Diet Coke of all, Diet Vanilla Coke (although, to be fair, this may have medicinal benefits I'm not privy to - why else would it taste like hairspray?).

``What's your game?'' I demanded of the first Coca-Cola spokesperson to take my call.

Scott Williamson was cool alright, insisting that there are no plans to do away with Diet Coke as we know it. He said that the colas come lately are meant to complement, not replace, the Diet Coke sweetened with the delicious aspartame.

Now I know how the Tab people feel. Those poor fools. You see them sometimes, driving to distant vending machines rumored to carry their beloved pink-canned nectar.

``I heard there was a machine in the basement of a BU dorm that has it sometimes,'' they'll whisper, so parched they can barely speak.

Coke has an official excuse, of course. It's blaming the customer. ``The innovations that you are seeing are based on feedback from consumers,'' Williamson said. ``They want more variety and options.''

Says you, Scott. A poll on the MSNBC.com Web site shows that most people actually believe there are too many Coke and Pepsi choices. By midday yesterday the numbers were running 54 to 44, with three percent - incredibly - undecided.

Well, gotta go. Time to start hoarding.