I'm not surprised.
Posted on 12/03/2009 9:57:40 AM PST by BGHater
Now that the holidays are upon us, it’s time to get annoyed with the consumerism, secularism and political correctness that continue to whittle away at the meaning of the holiday season.
The secular and consumption-driven nature of the season has become so routine that one has to work hard to remember to take time for the traditions and religious observances that once defined the season.
I thought I had seen every example of how religious meaning has been stripped out of Christmas until a friend showed me the label on a festive seasonal bottle of Coca Cola the other day. The marketers at Coke have taken secularism to new heights and thrown in a confusing mixed message for good measure.
On one side of the bottle’s label was the catchy phrase “Holiday 2009” in English. Not Happy Holiday, mind you, but Holiday 2009, as if it were important only to know the year the soda was produced but not to recognize any other significance of the holiday.
Hats off to the people at Coke. That’s about as generic as you can get, and it bears no risk of offending anyone with a message that could be interpreted as religious in nature. In fact, the message has no meaning whatsoever.
But there’s more to it than that. On the opposite side of the label was the mirror image written in Spanish, a common practice for consumer goods marketed to a growing Hispanic population. However, in place of the English-language Holiday 2009 on the label was the Spanish phrase “Feliz Navidad.”
Thanks to the song by Jose Feliciano, many of us non-Spanish speakers know that Feliz Navidad means Merry Christmas, a phrase with far more meaning than Holiday 2009. If translated literally it actually means Happy Nativity, taking the meaning directly to the birth of the Christ child in the manger.
So while the English-speaking public gets the equivalent of a date stamp, the folks at Coca Cola see fit to wish the Spanish-speaking population a Merry Christmas and recognize the core spiritual essence of the Christmas holiday.
I find that fascinating, and I have to wonder what it means. Is it that English-speaking people are seen by the marketers at Coke as completely secular and likely to be offended by the expression Merry Christmas or a link between the holiday season and a Christian holiday?
Or do the people at Coke view Hispanics as more religious than non-Hispanics? Do they think that Hispanics value the religious significance of Christmas more highly and may be offended if the reference to Christmas were left off of a seasonal product?
Is it that Hispanics lack the diversity of religious beliefs and secular viewpoints that exist in the English-speaking population? Perhaps the holiday season equates to Christmas alone in the Hispanic population, and thus Merry Christmas will have meaning to a large segment of that population without offending many of them.
Is the Hispanic population where the rest of us were 30 or 40 years ago when you could wish people a Merry Christmas without triggering widespread social angst or risk being sued? Have they yet to develop the advanced state of political correctness that plagues the English-speaking population?
I have to believe that the marketers at Coke are savvy enough to know exactly what they are doing and were very deliberate in the choices of English and Spanish language phrases they made. But I think a lot of people who notice the labeling in the first place will understand the meaning of Feliz Navidad and wonder at the disparity between that and the drivel on the opposite side of the bottle.
Whatever the reason behind it, I envy the Hispanic population for receiving from Coca Cola a meaningful holiday wish while the rest of us get only a reminder of what year it is.
That does not even help us old guys...
Yep.
I just had TWO.
My head is spinning ;)
I'm not surprised.
Coca Cola CREATED modern Christmas (Santa) imagery.
Before Coke, Santa was often portrayed in a black robe and not nearly as jolly-looking.
It was Coca Cola that introduced the red/white Santa image that now dominates the season.
That was probably the Crown Royal you mixed in.
Christmas is OK as long as you are not white.
"This opium sure makes me thirsty. Can't wait til they invent Coca-Cola, which will quench my thirst and give me strength to work all night long!"
LMAO!!
Actually it goes back a bit father than that.
From Wikipedia: “One of the first artists to define Santa Claus’s modern image was Thomas Nast, an American cartoonist of the 19th century. In 1863, a picture of Santa illustrated by Nast appeared in Harper’s Weekly.
I can remember as a kid in the 40s going to the volunteer fire station with my Uncle and they had an origin Thomas Nast signed drawing of Santa. Seems like he was a member in years past.
That really fries them.
That reminds me; When did Santa quit smoking? when I was a kid (ca 1950) he always had a pipe.
They're betting that Anglo non-Christians and cranky atheists are too stupid to know what "Feliz Navidad" really means. Whereas since most Spanish-speaking Hispanics and Latino Americans would be Catholic, they would be safe with that. What the ACLU needs is a few cranky Hispanic atheists to file a lawsuit...claiming they're offended by announcing Christmas during the Christmas holiday season as a marketing campaign...
They were just "shocked, SHOCKED" to find Christmas mentioned
during the Christmas rush shopping season!
"Hey, we'd like you to buy our product for the Christmas season, but we only want to mention that in Spanish, see..."
I wonder what atheists shout during sex?
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