Coca-Cola bills itself as “The Official Soft Drink of NASCAR” and has provided sponsorship to several drivers who race in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, the top level of NASCAR-sanctioned automobile racing, although they’re not the primary sponsor of any Sprint Cup team.
As part of its partnership with NASCAR and several of its top drivers, Coca-Cola maintains a Twitter account designed to market Coke to NASCAR fans, using the handle @CocaColaRacing. However, whoever operates the Coca-Cola Racing Twitter page sucks at marketing.
Coca-Cola Racing tweeted two photos of NASCAR driver Joey Logano, one of several drivers sponsored by Coca-Cola, celebrating his win in the night race at Bristol Motor Speedway in Tennessee in August of this year. The right-side photo shows Logano with no Coke bottle whatsoever (although a Coca-Cola patch on his racing suit is visible), and the left-side photo shows Logano with a Coke bottle that is nearly empty. Additionally, if you were to click on both photos to view the full photos, you’ll find that the two photos are the same exact picture, with Logano holding a near-empty Coke bottle in his left hand (right side from the viewer’s perspective), the only difference being that the photo is cropped slightly differently in the left side photo in the tweet than the right side photo.
It’s not anywhere near as bad as their infamous marketing fail from nearly three decades ago, but, for Coca-Cola to market itself by depicting someone holding a near-empty container of their flagship product is a big fail on their part.
The Progressive Midwesterner 