Coke's Enviga investigated over calorie-burning claims originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 05 Feb 2007 16:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

When I wrote about the new "Enviga" calorie-burning green tea soda from The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE:KO) earlier today, I happened upon Hank Greenberg's blog, almost by chance, and his off-hand comment that "to show how hated Coke is: Merrill Lynch came out with a report Friday reiterating a 'buy' on Coke and the stock slipped." What's more, the stock fell a touch on the news of the Enviga launch, not recovering perceptibly until today; three trading days later and on love for a potential successor to CEO Neville Isdell [president of international operations Muhtar Kent is expected to be promoted to COO].

So I took a look at Greenberg's column in the Wall Street Journal this weekend [subscription required], in which he called Coke a comeback kid in the making, quoting those who think the company is "a company starting on its way back with several of the most powerful brands in the world." Coke of 1998 -- when the stock price was at its peak -- is the Coke I'm most familiar with, a Coke that was the home team for the Atlanta Olympics, a Coke that, in my then-adopted home region of the South, was everyone's legacy stock (like Microsoft was the Northwest's legacy "grandma" stock).

Then, a loved leader died. After Roberto Goizueta was felled by lung cancer in 1997 (don't smoke boys and girls!), M. Douglas Ivester took his sparkling shiny red company and, with the considerable assistance of successor Douglas N. Daft, drove the stock price down, down, down. Isdell has failed to woo the hearts of Wall Street and we're left with a profitable, cash-rich Coke, stocked with a stable of brands that define the word "Brand," that everyone hates.

And. What better time to buy than this?

Continue reading Coke is it -- that is, if 'it' is 'most hated stock.' Could new leader mean love?

Coke is it -- that is, if 'it' is 'most hated stock.' Could new leader mean love? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 16 Oct 2006 20:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Remember the 90s? Ahh, the 90s, when I was in high school and college and we all believed that (a) bagels and cereal were diet foods and (b) drinking a Diet Coke with your pizza was a good way of cancelling out the calories.

The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE:KO) has announced that it will be releasing a new calorie-burning soft drink called "Enviga" in November, just in time to balance out your Thanksgiving dinner I suppose. That's right, I said "calorie-burning." It could be that my pizza/diet soda strategy from 1992 could finally actually work!

Enviga uses green tea extract (EGCG, which has nothing to do with an EKG, much though my mind immediately leaps there), caffeine and calcium, and the company says it is actually proven to burn calories. Investors seem cautiously optimistic and have sent the stock up a bit, about 20 cents, since the announcement.

I don't know. First of all: the packaging looks to me like those alcoholic drinks -- totally the wrong association for Coke's target market. Second, I connect calorie-burning with the fen-phen troubles of the late 90s (yep, those darned 90s again). Third, as Sarah Gim from Slashfood points out, Enviga is only "proven" to burn calories in "healthy people with a lean to normal body type" -- those that don't really need to burn any more calories. Sarah, Sarah! Don't you know that customers don't read the small print??

It remains to be seen whether Enviga will crash and burn due to confusing packaging, or it will soon be on the desks of millions of lean-to-normal female high school and college students, who are certain that they're in need of losing just five more pounds. If I know anything about their collective psychology, I'd be betting on option #2.

Coke taking 'diet soda' to a whole new meaning originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 16 Oct 2006 15:13:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.