Hoarding vegetables, grain and coke has become the survival code of young people under the epidemic. In the paragraph "Shanghainese guide Beijingers to store goods", the most striking thing is "be sure to store more Coca Cola, whether you drink it or not." Everyone's experience of being isolated at home these days shows that coke has become a hard currency in "barter" and can be used for almost all other necessities of life.
Under the special circumstances of weakening material circulation, the consumption logic accumulated for a long time has been broken again and again - everyone's concept has rapidly changed from the consistent "drinking coke is unhealthy" to "drinking coke is the best under depression". From "low sugar and low card" chasing healthy petty bourgeoisie to "coke must buy something with sugar, and it's hard to change something without sugar".
In the advanced version of the isolation needs pyramid of netizens, coke is at the top of the pyramid, followed by KFC, chocolate, snail powder, and then meat, eggs, milk, vegetables, rice and other basic necessities of life.
How can daily drinks, which can be seen everywhere in convenience stores in first tier cities or small shops in 18th tier counties, suddenly become a replacement for hard currency and social currency? Where does the "coke superiority" of urban young people come from?
Source: microblog
When coke becomes a luxury
Not long ago, the topic of "12 cans of coke in Shanghai community for a small supermarket" rushed to the hot search.
It is said that an owner in Pudong, Shanghai took out a box of Coca Cola he hoarded for free, walked along the Xinghe River, and then changed into chili sauce, milk, fruit, even cosmetics, diapers and other materials in the elevator.
Since then, there has even been a widely circulated formula for coke exchange in Shanghai: 1 bottle of Coca Cola = 3 vegetables = 5 eggs = 2 No. 5 batteries = 5 rolls of toilet paper.
Source: microblog
Although some people left a message in the hot search comment area, saying they felt that "vegetable ingredients are obviously more precious than coke, and coke doesn't care whether it's full." But Shanghai People's enthusiasm for coke is still only increasing, for the simple reason that they are "greedy".
Some examples can prove how popular coke is: Liang Hui, who lives in Shanghai, originally wanted to launch coke group buying in the community through official channels. The number of group buying was enough, but "I don't know why she couldn't get the goods"; Song Jia, another migrant worker, found that 24 bottles of coke sold for 120 yuan when searching the delivery of coke on the takeout software, which was almost twice the price of ordinary coke, and roast that "it is estimated that it was not so expensive during World War II".
In fact, some neighbors have expressed the significance of coke for maintaining life in a special period in the community: "it's time to take coke". It is precisely because Coke is not a necessity. It consumes redundant manpower from ordering to handling and distribution. Rare things are expensive, so it has become a rare "luxury" in one fell swoop. In addition, considering that Coca Cola in aluminum cans is the standard product, which has a wide range of popularity and is resistant to storage, it is very suitable to be used as the "general equivalent" in barter.
From the official page of creating a group released by Coca Cola, the group price of Coca Cola is consistent with the previous market price. They are all plastic bottles with a box of 80 yuan and aluminum cans with a box of 70 yuan. They didn't take the opportunity to raise the price. However, the purchase of Coca Cola has to meet the requirements of "starting order of 50 cases", "consulting the community property or neighborhood committee before group purchase", "knowing the delay caused by uncontrollable factors", which still gives many coke lovers a headache.
Figure source: Official procurement channel of Shanghai Coca Cola
A young man trapped in a Shanghai Hotel "really wanted to drink coke" and didn't know other hotel guests. He had to buy 50 cases of coke at one time, so he was jokingly called "head of the independent regiment" by the coke supplier.
By contrast, Pepsi is much more depressed. Among the many passages related to coke, it is heartbreaking that a bottle of Coca Cola can be worth ten thousand gold, but it is warned that "Pepsi can't". People can't help wondering why Coca Cola can crush Pepsi so easily.
Coffee and iced black tea are also encountered. Although like Pepsi, they all have their own "loyalty powder", they have never become a hard currency widely recognized by the whole city and even the world like coke.
Coca Cola hasn't lost
Coca Cola is always hot.
In addition to the hard currency of "barter" in the neighborhood that is well sung on the domestic network, Coca Cola's latest overseas popularity comes from musk, who just bought twitter.
On April 28, musk tweeted that he wanted to "buy Coca Cola". Instantly triggered extensive discussion on the Internet and received millions of likes. Following his involvement in head new energy vehicles, head aerospace research and head social software, musk set his sights on the "head world beverage".
His love for diet coke is no secret. There is a legend in the Jianghu that musk needs "eight bottles of diet coke a day". As the largest shareholder of Coca Cola, Buffett is also a coke lover. It is said that he loved drinking coke since childhood and drank five cans a day.
Whether musk does have an acquisition plan is still unknown, but his words triggered the enthusiasm of a large number of netizens. We put coca cola bottles, dog coins and "Elon Musk" icons together.
Source: Twitter
Coca Cola, as a "necessary drink for emotional comfort", has a long history. However, Coca Cola has become the focus of hot discussion again and again, building an unbreakable brand image in the hearts of consumers is related to its successful marketing strategy.
Coca Cola was first discovered by the United States in the 19th century. On the Pacific battlefield during World War II, iced Coca Cola was once again called "soldiers happy water" and became a good comfort product.
Since then, the battle between blue and red, the mystery of the unique formula, and the promotion by the news of Apollo landing on the moon, it can be said that Coca Cola has never lost in grabbing hot spots. The latest marketing strategy of Coca Cola is the meta universe boom on the tuyere of "porcelain touch".
Last year, NFT collections were hot. Coca Cola cooperated with TAFI, a digital wearable device design platform, to launch Coca Cola friendship box containing four single version dynamic NFTs as the first batch of digital collections with Coca Cola logo. It also put the famous Coca Cola friendship card in the 1940s into the single version of dynamic NFT.
"Meta universe" Coca Cola, source: Coca Cola official website
On April 5 this year, Coca Cola announced the launch of "byte byte limited series" products, claiming that its new flavor pixel flavor sugar free Cola is "the first metauniverse Coca Cola". In addition, there is ar immersive concert digital marketing led by Coca Cola.
Many "inside information" of Shanghai Coca Cola's "out of the circle" is said to have been revealed by Coca Cola employees. For example, an internal source on the Internet said that the inventory of Coca Cola factory in Shanghai was once faced with clearing, which was "a situation that did not happen during World War II" and "now the internal employees of Coca Cola also need to find a relationship to buy Coke in Shanghai".
In order to alleviate the emergency shortage of Coca Cola, Swire Coca Cola has launched a group link specifically for community group buying in Shanghai. The goods purchased through official channels are claimed to be distributed by Coca Cola's official logistics, but still because of its limited transportation capacity, all "heads" are called on to pick up the goods by themselves.
In order to ensure that Coca Cola, as a "non survival necessity", is successfully accepted by the group, Coca Cola also provided five boxes of its mineral water "Chunyue" for each delivery, which is specially used to thank the head and volunteers. It can be said that the service was up to standard.
Shanghai Coca Cola group purchase precautions source: Coca Cola group purchase link
How long can coke feel superior
With the emergence of various emerging beverages known as zero calorie and Zero sugar, such as high-priced soda and bubble water, the "beverage inner roll" is inevitable, and Coca Cola also feels the pressure from the change of consumption trend.
In the fourth quarter of last year, Coca Cola wholly acquired bodyarmor, a beverage brand that produces sports performance and hydrating drinks, which also revealed the future transformation direction of the company focusing on carbonated drinks. At the beginning of this year, Coca Cola announced that it would join hands with its old rival Pepsi to "destroy" the vitality forest of the new generation of beverage brands in the domestic market.
Although high sugar carbonated drinks are considered unhealthy "junk food" by young people, Coca Cola's gross profit margin has always been more than 60%, firmly sitting in the position of international beverage giant.
Even if the price was raised under the influence of the epidemic at the beginning of this year, due to the limited range of price rise, the retail price of Coca Cola remained around 3 yuan a tin, and the sales volume was not affected.
According to the financial report of the first quarter of 2022 released by Coca Cola on April 26 this year, its net revenue was US $10.491 billion, a year-on-year increase of 16%; The net profit was US $2.793 billion, a year-on-year increase of 24%.
There are actually two other carbonated drinks under Coca Cola: Fanta and sprite. Non carbonated beverages also include juice brand Meiliyuan. But only Coca Cola has really become a scarce soft drink.
Source: Coca Cola official website
In fact, Coca Cola's enduring allure is hidden in this "knowingly" high sugar formula. Its sugar free Cola category meets the needs of coke lovers pursuing health. Under the catalysis of the epidemic, young people really need high calorie and refreshing drinks to increase their happiness.
Because Coca Cola has been endowed with the attribute of decompression and comfort for a century, it has long occupied the user's mind. Therefore, it is more likely to be sought after than Sprite, Fanta, orange juice and even Pepsi in the same category of cola.
However, when coke becomes a "standard stock" that every household must buy, its scarcity is also declining.
Xiao Yun, who currently works at home in Beijing, believes that the phenomenon of "coke becoming a hard currency" may only exist in Shanghai for a short time. After all, once there was a shortage of food, materials needed to be obtained by group purchase, and "non necessities" were difficult to obtain, all of which were only available at one time in a special period.
At present, Beijing's logistics channels, whether takeout or materials, are smooth. In addition, after referring to the stock list suggestions from the people of Shanghai, almost every friend around him has one or two boxes of coke in his home - after all, coke is not difficult to buy under normal shopping conditions, which makes everyone lack of coke.
In the final analysis, "coke" is only one of the special means of marketing. At that time, once the opportunity passed, coke, which lost its scarcity, could not become the so-called "hard currency". Even when it's time to trade things for things, people will turn to chasing the next hard to get universal goods. The "hard currency" at that time may be the old godmother or KFC.