This Coca-Cola holiday ad is sparking outrage in Mexico

Ad seen as ‘discriminatory and detrimental to the health of indigenous people’

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Health groups in Mexico call Coca-Cola’s holiday message out of touch and offensive.

Coca-Cola Co. may want to teach the world to sing, but it’s hit a sour note in Mexico over a controversial ad that has since been taken down from the company’s YouTube channel.
An advertisement featuring young, light-skinned volunteers passing out bottles of Coke KO, -0.28% to an indigenous group in Oaxaca, Mexico, is being panned by an alliance of health organizations and consumer-rights advocates as insensitive and offensive. They are calling for the company’s “Open Your Heart” holiday campaign to be halted.


The ad shows young, fashionable volunteers hauling in coolers of Coke and a Christmas tree with red Coca-Cola lights as part of a community service offering.

As the volunteers bond with locals over bottles of Coke, the company says it aims to “break down prejudice” by sharing, stating that “this Christmas a group of young people decided to give something very special to the indigenous community of Totontepec Villa de Morelos in Oaxaca.”
“It’s outrageous for the indigenous,” Diana Turner, a spokeswoman for Consumer Power, told the Associated Press. Consumer Power is part of the group that is asking Mexico’s National Council to Prevent Discrimination to block the ads. On its website, Consumer Power calls Coca-Cola's ad “discriminatory and detrimental to the health of indigenous people,” a population that has seen obesity and malnutrition rates skyrocket over the past decade.
The video “was launched on digital channels, seeking to convey a message of unity and joy,” Coca-Cola spokeswoman Ann L. Moore said in a statement to MarketWatch. “Our intention was never to be insensitive to or underestimate any indigenous group. We have now removed the video and apologize to anyone who may have been offended.”
Mexico, a major consumer of sugary beverages, has been grappling with a growing obesity crisis over the past decade. The National Survey of Health and Nutrition reported in 2012 that more than half the population of Mexico City was either overweight or clinically obese, and a year later, the country was back in the headlines for surpassing the U.S. as world’s heaviest country. Obesity is particularly a problem among rural, more impoverished communities in the southern part of Mexico.
Mexico has introduced a soda tax and launched a media campaign to raise health and obesity awareness over the past couple of years, and surveys show that more than half of Mexicans now say they are limiting their sugary beverage intake.
“People are beginning to perceive that drinking these beverages represents a health risk,” Alejandro Calvillo, director of El Poder del Consumidor, told The Wall Street Journal last year.
Diabetes and cardiovascular diseases are the two leading causes of death in Mexico, according to the Mexican Diabetes Federation.
The ad was removed from Coca-Cola’s YouTube channel Tuesday evening.