Soft Drink Industry Using Smokin' PR

by Anne Landman — August 24, 2009 - 2:15pm
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Soft drink companies are joining the list of corporations scrambling to use tobacco industry public relations tactics to influence legislation, in this case to scuttle a proposal to tax sodas and sugary drinks to help fund health care. A front group formed and funded by the beverage industry called Americans Against Food Taxes (AAFT) says on its Web site, NoFoodTaxes.com, that it is a "coalition of concerned citizens" including "financially strapped families," but its members are the world's biggest soda pop and sugary-drink manufacturers, along with the nation's biggest convenience store and fast food chains. AAFT is running TV ads in the Washington, D.C. area that show a slender adult couple and their children on a family camping trip while a voice-over says, "This is no time for Congress to be adding taxes on the simple pleasures we all enjoy. ... We all want to improve health care, but taxes never made anyone healthy. Education, exercise and balanced diets do that." Yale University researcher Kelly Brownell says the soft drink companies are using the same tactics that the tobacco industry uses to ward off taxes: promoting personal responsibility as the answer, offering "healthier" versions of their products that have negligible benefits, abdicating responsibility for abuse of their products and claiming a tax on soda would be an attack on free choice.

Main Source: 
San Francisco Chronicle, August 16, 2009

Comments

Soft Drink Analysis

Submitted by tax attorney (not verified) on July 15, 2011 - 11:29am.

Key factors for competitive success within the soft drink industry branch from the trends of the macroenvironment. Primarily, constant product innovation is imperative. A company must be able to recognize consumer wants and needs, while maintaining the ability to adjust with the changing market.

I just *adore* the way the

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on February 3, 2011 - 5:00pm.

I just *adore* the way the front group defenders try to squirm with slippery reasoning:

1) They hire some Americans, so it is not a "front group" They ARE "AMERICANS Against Food Taxes".

2) If you dig around on the internet, you can find names of the people in the group. As long as your deception isn't TOO well hidden, then that's the same as being honest and forthright.

Those comments are too clever by half.

So if Al Qaeda (a multinational organization) comes to the U.S. and operates a full tilt set of companies that EMPLOY some Americans, and uses those companies to pay for "pro Sharia" advertising ... then you'd say THOSE companies are NOT "front groups" for Al Qaeda? I mean, as long as enough internet sleuthing might reveal their Al Qaeda ties?

Pull the other one!

You can bet the people defending AAFT here are paid by AAFT

Submitted by I see thru you (not verified) on February 2, 2011 - 10:47pm.

Note how AAFT has implemented SEO to make sure that we have to dig at least three pages deep on the Google search to find a page with information showing us who is behind this front group - shouldn't there be a term, like "buried in the astroweeds" for this type of action?"

two thumbs up for this tax

Submitted by GeraldDerec (not verified) on February 15, 2010 - 7:05pm.

Soft drink companies should definitely be taxed, almost as bad as tobacco and alcohol. The amount of sugar, preservatives, and all kinds of other garbage in soft drinks is killing us by the millions in cancer, obesity, and heart disease. There are way more tax problems to worry about before fussing over harmful foods!

Why do you call Americans

Submitted by Proud Corporate Shill (not verified) on August 28, 2009 - 8:19pm.

Why do you call Americans Against Food Taxes a "front group'? It lists its members right here: http://www.nofoodtaxes.com/about/. And it's clear from its site, its advertising and its positions that it's representing the beverage and related industries. There is nothing wrong with this. As a consumer, I'd expect nothing less than the beverage industry to fight back against a tax increase. I'm glad its money is paying for this effort.

Yet you, the "public interest" scolds at Center for Media and Democracy, are somehow more noble than the greedy corporations you lambaste because your funding is routed through foundations and trusts??

At least with the "front groups," I know where the money is coming from and why it's being spent. I can't say the same about you guys.

frontgroup

Submitted by Debra Amato (not verified) on January 29, 2011 - 8:38am.

If the beverage industry etc. does not want to be called a front group, they should be up front and honest instead of hiding behind the name Americans Against Food Taxes. They are well aware of what they are doing and know that many Americans will believe their propaganda!

Front group

Submitted by webster (not verified) on August 30, 2009 - 4:06pm.

Because when the Center for Media and Democracy speaks publicly, they speak as the Center for Media and Democracy - not by placing a fake "family" on TV to "speak" about that "family's" "concerns".

And because "Americans Against Food Taxes" is not actually an organization of Americans against food taxes - it is a FRONT GROUP for the soft drink industry. When they call themselves "Soft Drink Corporations Against Soft Drink Taxes", i will agree they are not a front group. Why do they give a false name if they are not trying to finesse their identity?

And the ONLY reason you can read their actual members at their website is because "public interest scolds" have FOUGHT to get public disclosure laws passed, so that it is at least possible to find the true identity of FRONT GROUPS like "Americans Against Food Taxes". Without this legal protection in force, they would be HAPPY to leave NO TRACE of their actual identity while they spread their disinformation.

Front Groups...continued

Submitted by Proud Corporate Shill (not verified) on August 31, 2009 - 7:18pm.

Again, I don't quite get what makes it a front group. It lists almost 370 associations and companies as its members, and they include manufacturers, retailers, distributors. Some are large, some are small, but all have a real interest in this matter.

The Center for Media and Democracy, however, is one organization. Its funding is untraceable. How is it any more credible than a coalition with nearly 370 pledged members?

What do they do with the tax money anyway?

Submitted by Anonymous Coke Fan (not verified) on October 11, 2010 - 12:09pm.

The point is, giving the government more money does what, exactly?

No one will be giving up MickeyD's, Coke or Pepsi any time soon. The taxes don't go for health care, they are just a punishment for people eating or drinking, and I for one have had enough of the government trying to control everything in the universe.

The US shouldn't be a complete nanny state!

CMD's mysterious funding...

Submitted by Diane Farsetta on September 1, 2009 - 11:31am.

... is fully described here:
[http://www.prwatch.org/finances.html www.prwatch.org/finances.html]

To understand where the money goes, please read our latest annual report -- available at that same page -- or simply read what we post on this website and our [[SourceWatch]] collaborative encyclopedia.