Or, now that someone's reverse-engineered the Coca-Cola formula and everyone's saying we need to stop pandering to USA IP rights, governments have the opportunity to do the funniest thing ever. I think Russia already did.
In the niche perfumes hobby, you have small brands doing that or people paying for gcms analysis on perfumes, i guess that companies have already done that on coke for decades
Their real genius was always marketing, associating sugar water with freedom, free time, summer AND christmas, ... Not to look down on them, good marketing is both very hard and very powerfull.
Assuming the person burns the money they would've spent on Cola in the first place. But they aren't, they'll probably just redirect that money to an alternative soft drink, probably a more local one.
Virtually one will stop buying Coke. Virtually no one will stop wanting an iPhone. So on and so forth. They will gladly criticize the US while continuing to indulge in the biggest brand names.
Today, yes. Once US troops start forcefully occupying European territory, eh...
Jim Beam (the bourbon distillery) said before Trump 10% of their sales were to Canada, and that has gone to nearly zero.
or by most people agreeing Cola isn't healthy, so it's becomes a Luxus product they just sometimes drink and then going for a slightly more "interesting" alternative brand which fit's more the "fancy treat" vibe is pretty common (we already have been seeing this in part of Germany, where it's not rare that restaurants serve Fritz or Afro Cola over Coca Cola as the Brands "seem" more fancy while Coca Cola feels more like the cheaper non fancy choice. By being relative cheap Coca Cola might have opened created the perfect basis for it being replaced in the "fancy" context. And by it not being cheap enough it get replaced in the "people with no money" context. This leads the "in between" context (which would still be a majority in Germany) and all the US food chains etc. but only if the people don't have a personal reason to switch. Most people in Germany drink Cola only from time to time.
many alternative Colas don't try to imitate Coca Cola but give Cola their own twist, and IMHO multiple of them taste noticeable better then Coca Cola
and for people with little money getting cheaper knock-off is pretty common and people get used to it
at the same time Coca Colas brand isn't seen as "fancy"/"high quality"/"well regarded" enough anymore. So many restaurants for which cola isn't just a "default fallback they don't care about" but a drink commonly combined with their meals, started serving other Cola brand like e.g. Fritz Cola, Mio Mio Cola or Afri Cola. Also some of the more beer/alk. focused companies have started to branch out to soft drinks as Alkohole consume is going down with some surprise successes (e.g. Paulana Spezi) but also with existing distribution contracts with Restaurants and Food Chains, so their stuff is popping up increasingly more often.
And I mean we are still speaking about the kind of soft drink with the most dominant brand control (Cola/Coca Cola), for all other soft drinks the US companies have a far less strong hold on them.
And sure some pople like I guess you will insist on drinking Coca Cola.
But also if the US continues to paint themself as the new big evil (while Russia looks increasingly weak, and China is clever enough to move mostly behind the scene) then it's just a matter of time until people will start ostracizing people for buying (unnecessary) products which are "well known US" and haven't somehow separated their company image from the US. Like seriously how did the US became so incompetent in politics that you find people all over the EU which think joining with China against the US would be a good idea and long term better for their quality of live... like wtf.
The main drawback of them is that due to them operating on a (way) smaller scale and need to have a factor to differentiate themself, so most of them are more expensive. (but there are cheap no-brand clones, too).
A much bigger problem is that Nestle and co. try to either buy up any new innovative successful German food/drink companies. Sure after being bought up they tend to continue operate like before so technically they aren't dependent on the US, but they have been bought up anyway.
well I guess that is good news?? maybe?