Maybe it’s a coincidence and maybe it’s not: Today for the first time I saw this billboard ad promoting a new soft drink called “The Spirit of Georgia” – Produced in Germany. As far as I can see, it’s a new brand by Coca Cola and I don’t know if the timing its launch is good or bad.
What is your take on this?
Many thanks,
Torsten[YSaerTTEW443543]
TOEIC listening, question-response: Who is available to help unload this shipment?[YSaerTTEW443543]
Hi Torsten
The Spirit of Georgia ?-Never heard before…
Hi Che,
Up until a couple of hours ago I hadn’t heard of the drink either.
Then I saw this bottle on two large posters and after a little research I found out that Coca Cola had planned to lauch the drink in July but had to recall the bottles because of a technical failure. It’s supposed to be their answer to successful German softdrink Bionade.
Now they’ve obviously relaunched right at the time of the Georgian/Russian conflict. Very interesting.[YSaerTTEW443543]
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Very interesting…
What could be a better time to get people to notice it? It could be smart move, there is no telling whether people will actually buy it though. But in my country, people might not buy it because the bottle resembles the ones of alcoholic drinks.
Hi Nina,
As far as I know “The Spirit of Georgia” will be sold only in Germany and Austria. One of the selling points is that the drink is made in Germany. Coke has launched “The Spirit of Georgia” to compete with a German soft drink maker that is selling a drink called “Bionade”.[YSaerTTEW443543]
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Hi all
I thought a little background information might be interesting here.
The use of the name Georgia by the Coca Cola company is not terribly surprising. Coca Cola was invented in Atlanta – in the US state of Georgia.
inventors.about.com/od/cstartinv … a_cola.htm
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Pemberton
In addition, artist William Tolliver created a poster for the 1996 Olympics (which were held in Atlanta, Georgia) and the title of it is ‘The Spirit of Georgia’.
thecollectionshop.com/Willia … filiate=63
answers.com/topic/william-tolliver
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Hi Amy,
Thanks a lot for posting those links. Do you also happen to know the connection between Kristian Siewert and “The Spirit of Georgia”?[YSaerTTEW443543]
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I’m most certainly the biggest Coca Cola fan on earth so of course I’ve tasted the Spirit of Georgia and what can I say? I’m afraid I’m addicted to that stuff already ;-)!
You must be from Germany or Austria, then. Or at least you were there when you drank it. 
Nina, are you saying you can’t get the spirit of georgia in Japan? That’s a tragedy and you should move to Europe immediately! You got that right, I’m Swiss but I live in Austria. What Coca Cola brands are available in Japan?
According to Torsten, no, we can’t get it here.
I have a better idea, why don’t you post it to me? :lol:
A lot, mostly coffee and tea. I bet you guys don’t have green tea available on vendor machines over there. Sad to say but I think you don’t know what you’re missing. 
Well, I guess different people drink different beverages. :idea:
EDIT:
Oh yes, welcome aboard!
Nina good afternoon or what is the time in Japan now? I don’t quite understand why Coca Cola doesn’t sell the spirit of georgia in other countries. Everyone around the world knows where georgia is and everbody knows what spirit means. How come you can buy coke but you are excluded from the spirit of georgia?
Also, it looks like it’s a peach flavored beverage, and we Americans have several expressions revolving around Georgia peaches.
Hi, good afternoon. It’s half past eleven in the evening here. If you want to know the time anywhere around the world you can use the world clock here.
I think there’s a perfect reason for that. Not all people like flavoured drink, I suppose. For example, in Japan most people drink tea, and they prefer it to any other beverages. Again, there’s also differences in gender, age and profession. For instance, tea is famous among women for skin and health reasons, on the other hand, most working men --referred as “salaryman” here, prefer coffee in the morning; energy drink through out the day, to keep them energized --because they work like there’s no tomorrow here, and I can tell this stuff is good (energy drink). Then there’s also the beer drinking culture after a hard day’s work that created a fierce competition between beer makers here in Japan.
So as you see, I don’t think Spirit of Georgia can compete with that. Not drinking beer is unimaginable here. Once, a former colleague of mine told me that people who cannot drink sometimes are called “ダメ人間”(dame nin-gen) meaning, a useless person.
Right… :roll: But that’s culture.
In addition to the factors I mentioned above, I think Spirit of Georgia hasn’t yet the “it” factor. You know, the factor that we see with brands like Colgate, Coca cola itself, Johnson & Johnson, Kodak etc.
It just occurred to me that “The Spirit of Georgia” is a rather long name for a brand. I would venture to say that the majority of the German consumers are familiar with the words ‘spirit’ and ‘Georgia’ but they might have a hard time pronouncing the entire phrase. ‘The spirit of Georgia’ is much more difficult to pronounce than ‘Bionade’, ‘Coke’, ‘Fanta’, ‘Sprite’, ‘Pepsi’ or even ‘Mirinda’. Why do you think Coca Cola chose such a complicated name for their latest German brand?[YSaerTTEW443543]
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No, I don’t, Torsten. However, seeing as you mentioned him by name, I presume you do. :?:
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If Coca Cola were to successfully launch this product under the same name in the US, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if American consumers ended up referring to it with a nickname. In other words, some sort of shortened form, probably consisting of only one or two syllables. Maybe Coca Cola’s German marketing gurus had the same sort of expectation in mind. Who knows – maybe they were hoping that German consumers would end up nicknaming it “Sprit”. :lol:
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Hi Amy,
You are absolutely right – I also think that pronouncing ‘the spirit of Georgia’ is real challenge for German consumers and sales staff. It would be interesting to find out why the marketing people at Coca Cola Germany came up with that rather complicated and long name. I mean, the article ‘the’ alone poses quite some difficulty for a German to pronounce. Other stumbling blocks are ‘spirit’ and ‘Georgia’. That’s a far cry from the simple word ‘Bionade’ which is probably the biggest Spirit of Georgia competitor.[YSaerTTEW443543]
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