Health campaigners re-visit Coca-Cola’s classic ‘Hilltop’ ad with diabetic and obese patients
A US public health charity has re-visited the classic 1971 Coca-Cola advert Hilltop to warn of the dangers excessive consumption of sugary drinks posed to individual health.
The historic commercial gathered an international group of singers to an Italian hillside before breaking out into song to state ‘buy the world a Coke and keep it company’ and was lent contemporary prominence in the series finale of Mad Men.
Now, 44 years after the original, the Center for Science in the Public Interest has assembled a group of its own, albeit in the less glamorous setting of a hospital where they receive treatment for a range of health problems including obesity, diabetes and dental decay.
CSPI executive director Michael F. Jacobson, commented: 'For decades, Coca-Cola and other big soda companies have spent billions of dollars trying to convince Americans and citizens around the world that soda equals happiness.
'They have used the most sophisticated and manipulative advertising techniques to convince children and adults alike that a disease-promoting drink will make them feel warm and fuzzy inside.
'It's a multi-billion-dollar brainwashing campaign designed to distract us away from our diabetes with happy thoughts.”
Coca-Cola has dismissed the video as ‘irresponsible’ and ‘grandstanding’.