Coca-Cola in recent weeks has been hit by backlash in the Middle East and Asia over a botched effort to head off a boycott after its Bangladeshi franchise launched an advertising campaign falsely claiming the company had no link to Israel.
Without naming Israel, the ad was clear in its implication, starring a well-known Bangladeshi soap opera actor who reassured others in the ad not to worry, that they could drink Coca-Cola in good conscience because none came from “that place,” according to al Jazeera, which has been covering the controversy.
There is, in fact, a bottling factory in East Jerusalem, a Palestinian area, but the plant is owned by an Israeli company. Moreover, the land was judged to be illegally occupied, according to the International Court of Justice, an arm of the United Nations.
The land was captured by Israel during the 1967 war.
The ad sparked anger.
“As a global brand, we partner with local franchises to serve local communities,” said Scott Leith, spokesman for Atlanta-based Coca-Cola in a written statement. “We acknowledge that the recent video missed the mark, and we apologize. The video has been removed from all platforms.”
The ads, originally shown earlier this summer in Bangledesh, according to al-Jazeera. The campaign was aimed at reversing a drop in product sales many markets of the Middle East and Asia that was connected to the Israeli response to the incursion by Hamas on Oct. 7.
Hamas militants killed more than 1,200 people in Israel and took more than 240 people hostage, many of whose fate is still unknown. Since then, the Israeli military has killed 39,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, part of the Hamas government. The ministry does not differentiate between civilian and combatant deaths. The Israeli military has also dramatically restricted access to humanitarian aid.
The ongoing conflict in Gaza has led to calls for boycotts in the U.S. as well. Student protests on U.S. campuses in the spring included calls by some pro-Palestinian groups for universities to identify and cut economic ties to Israel, steps in a globally connected economy that would be very difficult to do.
Bangladesh has been embroiled in weeks of protests that began with demonstrations against a quota system for government jobs and turned violent several weeks ago, according to the Associated Press.
Activists launched a boycott campaign against companies with ties to Israel, which include Coca-Cola, as well as scores of other companies.
Coca-Cola Bangladesh Beverages was acquired earlier this year by a bottler in Turkey, Coca-Cola İçecek. Officials said it has more than 400 employees and a bottling plant.
Coke said in its earnings report last month that in its Eurasia and Middle East segment, “geopolitical tension and economic uncertainty continue to impact our business.”
“We’re working closely with our local partners to navigate these headwinds while investing for the longer-term,” the company said in its report.
The region saw declines in sales of “Trademark Coca‑Cola,” the report said. According to al Jazeera, sales of Coca-Cola are down 23% in Bangladesh since the start of the war.
As a global brand, Coca-Cola has been entangled before in geopolitics.
In a history of the company cited by Foreign Policy, author Mark Pendergrast sketched out the attempts of the company’s German unit to stay in business during the 1930s and 1940s even when cut off from its U.S. headquarters.
After World War II, Coca-Cola built plants in Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab world but not in Israel. In the 1960s, pro-Israel groups criticized the company and urged a boycott.
To fight that, Coca-Cola found a partner in Israel — but that violated a longstanding Arab boycott of all corporate involvement in Israel. So, Arab nationalists moved to ban the company and by 1968, according to Foreign Policy, Coca-Cola was forced out of the Arab world.
The company came back into Arab markets during the 1980s when there was a lessening of tensions.
