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I'm curious how much other major brands pay to stay in their places Coke arguably pays megabucks to have giant displays in prime locations. Those locations hav

by gernb 4y ago

I'm curious how much other major brands pay to stay in their places Coke arguably pays megabucks to have giant displays in prime locations. Those locations have limited space so Coke taking up one is Similarly, IIUC, companies pay to have their products put in conspicuous places in stores like Walmart, Target, etc. Only rich companies can afford to always get the spots that stick out the most. I don't know if those are compariable. Google pays Apple to be the default search engine seems no different than Coke paying to be the first soda on the aisle or to be featured on the edge of the aisle. People are still free to pick a different search engine or go into the soda aisle. Of course in retail another tactic is to make a bunch of products that appear to be different but are all basically the same. I think Crest or Colgate and 15 kinds of mouthwash all of which have the same "active ingredient" at the same concentration. The goal is to fill up the shelves with your products so there is no room left for the competition's products since shelf space is limited.

andrewxdiamond 4y ago
Coke gives Disney unlimited free beverages as long as they only sell coke products in their parks
- NavinF 4y ago
  Sounds like bullshit and at least one site agrees with my intuition: > Legend: Because of the advertising value of having its products featured at Disney theme parks, Coca Cola provides Disneyland with all of its beverage products free of charge. >Behind the Legend: This is true, but highly misleading. For years, Coke has had an advantage over rival Pepsi because it provides its products free of charge to all of its customers. The company makes up the loss by requiring that beverages only be sold in official cups or containers -- and charging an enormous amount for those contains. The container charge is based on a sliding scale depending on the customer. Individual consumers, purchasing beverages at a grocery or convenience store, pay only a few cents for the can or bottle in which their beverage comes. At the other end of the scale, movie theaters and theme parks like Disneyland pay as much as $2.00 for a single drink cup, making the exorbitant prices charged for drinks at those locations completely understandable.
  - bsimpson 4y ago
    I wonder if this is why stores are assholes when you want a glass of water, and they give you the dinkiest cup.
  - timcederman 4y ago
    That site is effectively continuing the urban legend, but shifting it to be that Disney pays for cups. In reality, Coca-Cola and Disney's partnership is quite complex, and didn't become exclusive until 1990 (https://www.upi.com/Archives/1990/01/24/Disney-Coke-sign-15-year-pact/5116633157200/ https://www.upi.com/Archives/1990/01/24/Disney-Coke-sign-15-...). They've never publicly disclosed the terms, but I'm sure they aren't as simple as "we give you free syrup", given the depth of the co-marketing (e.g. giant coca-cola store at WDW, the Star Wars cokes they sell at the park, more examples here - https://disneyparks.disney.go.com/blog/2021/09/celebrating-collaboration-a-refreshing-look-at-disneys-history-with-coca-cola/ https://disneyparks.disney.go.com/blog/2021/09/celebrating-c...).
2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
It would be like if Pepsi paid Coke billions to not make soda. Or if Coke paid Walmart billions to not sell or make their own soda. They are paying them to not compete. Isn't that the definition of antitrust?
collaborative 4y ago
It's standard practice to offload truckloads of cash on marteking while you dominate the market. The purpose always is to stay on top. I personally think it should be illegal to spend $1 on marketing for companies above a certain size
- elromulous 4y ago
  The problem with this is that it's basically unenforceable. What counts as marketing? E.g. is sponsoring a charity event marketing?
  - MichaelCollins 4y ago
    If they plaster that charity event with their logo and name, then certainly yes. If it were really about charity and not advertising, they could do it as anonymously as a public corporation can, and not have the event plaster posters for the company everywhere.
    - brigandish 4y ago
      It's possible that the charities would get less money, probably a lot less money. That doesn't sound like a good trade off to me.
      - collaborative 4y ago
        There would always be companies donating to charities and advertising - just only the ones below the threshold. And the variety and number would be a lot more vibrant Word-of-mouth would actually be what the mega corps would aim for in this hypothetical system. They would be forced to treat customers super nice and actually lose money. Consumers would win and competition would improve. I propose the increased number of competitors would actually increase the donations made to charities. It just wouldn't all come from Coca Cola Corp and instead from hundreds of others
        4y ago
nvrspyx 4y ago
> Google pays Apple to be the default search engine seems no different than Coke paying to be the first soda on the aisle or to be featured on the edge of the aisle. People are still free to pick a different search engine or go into the soda aisle. It feels a little different to me because changing the default search engine requires more steps than simply walking down the aisle and it's obvious that the drink aisle has more drinks. Finding the search engine settings is rather difficult for the average user if they even know that there's settings for Safari, especially now that some of the settings are in Safari itself and others are tucked away in the Settings app. In my mind, it seems it would be more comparable if iOS had you choose the default search engine at setup and listed Google first or every shopping cart in a grocery store already had Coke in it, depending on which direction you wanted to make them comparable.
c4ptnjack 4y ago
From an economic perspective they are quite comparable. However, the complaint isn't asserting that such marketing practices are inherently illegal or harmful to a competitive marketplace. The accusation is that google abused its market dominance to render any competition virtually impossible, or at least fiscally unfeasible. If the market for search engines that also control the end-to-end ad/marketing space like Google does were genuinely competitive, this practice wouldn't be illegal according to the DOJ. Even if a company as unethical, obtrusive, innovative, and effective as Google existed and wanted to compete in this field, thered be almost no way of breaking into the market. That also explains why the charges are happening now instead of when they began this practice in the early 2000's, to answer the defense's question asked regarding why this happening now after all this time. IMO, the most telling and head-scratching detail is Google's claim that they face competition in the search engine marketplace with the likes of Amazon, GitHub, tik tok, meta and even Expedia? All because people don't have to use Google to access those products. It's ridiculous to claim just because you have information and a search function, it's somehow a competitor to Google. Feels insulting they claim all of those entirely different products, which don't seek to index the web and provide general search capabilities, qualify as competitors.
- sideshowb 4y ago
  Defense by comparison to tiktok and meta? "no the users aren't our customers, they're the product, and the market for their attention is very competitive srsly!"
- hiptobecubic 4y ago
  To be fair, meta basically wants to be the web and in practice, for many people i know, it basically is.
seydor 4y ago
The comparisons are misleading. Google is gatekeeping search. Cocacola is not forcing you to drink to enter a stadium.
- fho 4y ago
  Honestly ... Sometimes it feels like it. If you are out and are looking for a non-alcoholic beverage you are often limited to Coca Cola products. If you you then would prefer to have a non-sugary drink you are often left with water. (Background: German bar and clubbing scene; exceptions apply; this has somewhat changed with 0.0% beverages)
twelvedogs 4y ago
innovating is hard and haphazard, paying to defend your position is expensive but easy and incredibly predictable i'd be very surprised if any large company with a commanding market share isn't spending a significant chunk of change on lobbying and other ways of locking newcomers out of their market

by gernb 4y ago

andrewxdiamond 4y ago

Coke gives Disney unlimited free beverages as long as they only sell coke products in their parks

NavinF 4y ago
Sounds like bullshit and at least one site agrees with my intuition: > Legend: Because of the advertising value of having its products featured at Disney theme parks, Coca Cola provides Disneyland with all of its beverage products free of charge. >Behind the Legend: This is true, but highly misleading. For years, Coke has had an advantage over rival Pepsi because it provides its products free of charge to all of its customers. The company makes up the loss by requiring that beverages only be sold in official cups or containers -- and charging an enormous amount for those contains. The container charge is based on a sliding scale depending on the customer. Individual consumers, purchasing beverages at a grocery or convenience store, pay only a few cents for the can or bottle in which their beverage comes. At the other end of the scale, movie theaters and theme parks like Disneyland pay as much as $2.00 for a single drink cup, making the exorbitant prices charged for drinks at those locations completely understandable.
- bsimpson 4y ago
  I wonder if this is why stores are assholes when you want a glass of water, and they give you the dinkiest cup.
- timcederman 4y ago
  That site is effectively continuing the urban legend, but shifting it to be that Disney pays for cups. In reality, Coca-Cola and Disney's partnership is quite complex, and didn't become exclusive until 1990 (https://www.upi.com/Archives/1990/01/24/Disney-Coke-sign-15-year-pact/5116633157200/ https://www.upi.com/Archives/1990/01/24/Disney-Coke-sign-15-...). They've never publicly disclosed the terms, but I'm sure they aren't as simple as "we give you free syrup", given the depth of the co-marketing (e.g. giant coca-cola store at WDW, the Star Wars cokes they sell at the park, more examples here - https://disneyparks.disney.go.com/blog/2021/09/celebrating-collaboration-a-refreshing-look-at-disneys-history-with-coca-cola/ https://disneyparks.disney.go.com/blog/2021/09/celebrating-c...).

2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago

It would be like if Pepsi paid Coke billions to not make soda. Or if Coke paid Walmart billions to not sell or make their own soda. They are paying them to not compete. Isn't that the definition of antitrust?

collaborative 4y ago

It's standard practice to offload truckloads of cash on marteking while you dominate the market. The purpose always is to stay on top. I personally think it should be illegal to spend $1 on marketing for companies above a certain size

elromulous 4y ago
The problem with this is that it's basically unenforceable. What counts as marketing? E.g. is sponsoring a charity event marketing?
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  If they plaster that charity event with their logo and name, then certainly yes. If it were really about charity and not advertising, they could do it as anonymously as a public corporation can, and not have the event plaster posters for the company everywhere.
  - brigandish 4y ago
    It's possible that the charities would get less money, probably a lot less money. That doesn't sound like a good trade off to me.
    - collaborative 4y ago
      There would always be companies donating to charities and advertising - just only the ones below the threshold. And the variety and number would be a lot more vibrant Word-of-mouth would actually be what the mega corps would aim for in this hypothetical system. They would be forced to treat customers super nice and actually lose money. Consumers would win and competition would improve. I propose the increased number of competitors would actually increase the donations made to charities. It just wouldn't all come from Coca Cola Corp and instead from hundreds of others
      - 4y ago

nvrspyx 4y ago

> Google pays Apple to be the default search engine seems no different than Coke paying to be the first soda on the aisle or to be featured on the edge of the aisle. People are still free to pick a different search engine or go into the soda aisle. It feels a little different to me because changing the default search engine requires more steps than simply walking down the aisle and it's obvious that the drink aisle has more drinks. Finding the search engine settings is rather difficult for the average user if they even know that there's settings for Safari, especially now that some of the settings are in Safari itself and others are tucked away in the Settings app. In my mind, it seems it would be more comparable if iOS had you choose the default search engine at setup and listed Google first or every shopping cart in a grocery store already had Coke in it, depending on which direction you wanted to make them comparable.

c4ptnjack 4y ago

From an economic perspective they are quite comparable. However, the complaint isn't asserting that such marketing practices are inherently illegal or harmful to a competitive marketplace. The accusation is that google abused its market dominance to render any competition virtually impossible, or at least fiscally unfeasible. If the market for search engines that also control the end-to-end ad/marketing space like Google does were genuinely competitive, this practice wouldn't be illegal according to the DOJ. Even if a company as unethical, obtrusive, innovative, and effective as Google existed and wanted to compete in this field, thered be almost no way of breaking into the market. That also explains why the charges are happening now instead of when they began this practice in the early 2000's, to answer the defense's question asked regarding why this happening now after all this time. IMO, the most telling and head-scratching detail is Google's claim that they face competition in the search engine marketplace with the likes of Amazon, GitHub, tik tok, meta and even Expedia? All because people don't have to use Google to access those products. It's ridiculous to claim just because you have information and a search function, it's somehow a competitor to Google. Feels insulting they claim all of those entirely different products, which don't seek to index the web and provide general search capabilities, qualify as competitors.

sideshowb 4y ago
Defense by comparison to tiktok and meta? "no the users aren't our customers, they're the product, and the market for their attention is very competitive srsly!"
hiptobecubic 4y ago
To be fair, meta basically wants to be the web and in practice, for many people i know, it basically is.

seydor 4y ago

The comparisons are misleading. Google is gatekeeping search. Cocacola is not forcing you to drink to enter a stadium.

fho 4y ago
Honestly ... Sometimes it feels like it. If you are out and are looking for a non-alcoholic beverage you are often limited to Coca Cola products. If you you then would prefer to have a non-sugary drink you are often left with water. (Background: German bar and clubbing scene; exceptions apply; this has somewhat changed with 0.0% beverages)

twelvedogs 4y ago

innovating is hard and haphazard, paying to defend your position is expensive but easy and incredibly predictable i'd be very surprised if any large company with a commanding market share isn't spending a significant chunk of change on lobbying and other ways of locking newcomers out of their market