Growers and Grocers

My friend Tim Holmes sent me this snapshot of a Coca-Cola “success story” realized by The Olive Garden’s nationally distributed restaurants. The soft drink giant has since pulled the story, but not before an enterprising web master mirrored it.

The article outlines the problem the chain faced: “Many customers choose tap water not because they enjoy it, but because it’s what they have always drunk in the past.” The Olive Garden, in an effort to improve customer satisfaction raise profits, decided to launch a “campaign against water.” Servers would pitch soft drinks and “non-carbonated beverages” to the teeming hordes of customers unhappy with plain old tap water.

Now, I don’t mind a restaurant trying to make money on high-margin items, and I know that my local tap water is quite good relative to most of the country’s, but I loved the idea of a “campaign against water.” We’ve had the war on drugs and the war on terror. Now it’s time to start the next battle: the war on water! Just you wait until the next State of the Union; you can say you heard it here first.