Ricky Von Schmidt, July 6, 2004 United Kingdom Press
"Halt! Drop the Coke! You are now a prisoner of the United Countries Against Terrorism" .
That's a shout that will be common this summer, in the midst of Coke's new "Unexpected Summer" sweepstakes promotion, set for the Middle East. For the next several months, multiple shipments of the world's favorite carbonated sugar water will contain one of 1,200,003 special high-tech "cell-cans." Any terrorist lucky enough to come into possession of one of the coveted contraptions will find it contains not a tasty beverage, but rather an electronic gizmo incorporating a shock of 1 million volts, a GPS device used to locate the perpetrator, and a microphone and speaker, informing the unlucky SOD that he is now under international arrest.
The promotion is supposed to incorporate two surprises: The first is that a major player in the cola wars would decide to go after terrorist. The second has a new twist. Find a cell-can, and you do not get apprehended right away. Rather, the microphone cell-can will ease drop into conversations, looking for certain "trigger words". All conversations will be routed through ECHO, an organization that is designed to sift through countless billions bits of information each day, collected from other sources used in data-mining.
The cell-can will allow you to carry the gizmo around with you until, at an unexpected time and place; a special ops team from several participating countries will swoop down on the (maybe-not-feeling-so-lucky-now-are-you-bully-boy) and awards the Grand Prize: An undefined stay at GITMO.
A spokesman for GM said, "We are participating with a new armored Chevy SUV, which will be used for transport". Harrah's and Disney will both participate with a free tour of Las Vegas, so the detainee may observe western decadence first hand. The twist is the prisoner will be shackled, marched through the downtown area naked and be taunted by sun tanned vacationers on the busy streets.
The U.S. military is less than enthused about the idea. The United Nations Security Force, which everyone knows does not exist, is upset that Coca-Cola got the product out first. "We here at UNSF really like Pepsi and had hoped they'd be first to market", an anonymous spokeswoman stated.
The military is urging servicemen stationed in the Middle East to exercise caution in handling their beverages this summer. In a quintessential statement to the oblivious, soldiers who discover themselves to be in possession of a can equipped with a disguised cell phone and GPS chip; have been told not to bring it into "the latrines". Also, anyone who is picked up because they bought a "cell-can", arrested, flown to GITMO, and tortured, will be considered AWOL.
All this brouhaha is good for Coke. Since there is no such thing as bad publicity, this story will get press play regardless. Lisa Reedley, a Coke employee with the Advertising Dept. for 17 years stated, "We're working on a new advertising tag line: Live dangerously: Drink Coke". "Besides, terrorists hate the idea of mom, apple pie, bleached blondes in bikinis and Coca-Cola". "So it's time we did our part in the war on terrorism".
