Coca-what?

Although I don't know if it's true, I hear that the worlds most well-known word is 'okay'. And the second most well-known word is 'Coca-Cola'.

Whether that's a fact or not, I'll go ahead and believe it. How can I not? The world is so immersed in the advertising of a product like Coca-Cola it's astonishing. I read online recently that 94% of the world's population can recognize the Coca-Cola trademark. Holy balls! 7000 Coca-Cola products are consumed every second. Every second! That blows my mind.

When you get to that point, why is Coca-Cola still advertising the bejesus out of this beverage? Are they trying to score that last 6%? Are they hoping to track down the last jungle tribes and remote island communities untouched by the modern world, so they can set up vending machines and billboards? Same goes for McDonalds. They've successfully let everyone on the planet know they exist. They can stop now. Mission accomplished, you guys. We all know what a Big Mac and a Coke is, so lay off the commercials for a day.

Coca-Cola has an annual budget of 1.6 billion for advertising, and McDonalds has spent over 5 billion in the last decade, just for US advertising. Since everyone already knows what the products are, and most people have become hopelessly addicted to them, what's the point? If we can walk a block without encountering an ad, will we completely forget about it?

Just for fun, I would like these companies halt all advertising for a week, or better yet, an entire month. Just to see what happens. I'm guessing it wouldn't hurt sales in the least. It might even give sales a boost. Sure, why not? Maybe if the public is as stupid as they assume, everyone will immediately notice the lack of commercials and magazine ads, assume the businesses are shutting down, go into a deranged panic, and then begin stockpiling for a Cherry-Coke-less future.

1.6 billion? Why don't they give half of that to charity or to fund medical research? I bet if they gave a billion dollars away to worthwhile causes every year it would certainly be beneficial to their image; it would be the best advertising of all. And they still would have 600 million goddamn dollars to promote Coke. That would buy a lot of flyers. They could fly hundreds of planes around the world spilling out trillions of flyers and coupons and logos and slogans all over the land. Soon every inch of the Earth could be coated with their image.

They might as well, it seems to be the last big step.