Wednesday, August 20, 2008

7 Most Relevant Coke and Pepsi stories of the Last Year?

Today marks the 1 year anniversary of Coke vs. Pepsi: Soda is Good. Thank you for indulging my desire to use Coca Cola and Pepsi as an analogy for stories about Politics, Business, Charity, Home Life and Pro Wrestling!

Using Google Analytics as a measuring tool, I surveyed the most read stories in the past year, and crossed them with the pages that readers spent the most time on. (So that if a page got 400 hits, but readers only spent 1 second on the page, it would not automatically top the charts.) This creates the ‘Coke vs. Pepsi Top 7 Most Relevant’ list for the last 12 months.

Why Top Seven? Because everyone else does a Top 5 or Top 10.
I’m an average guy with an average intelligence. So I chose the Average.

Let’s make something very clear: I have no skills in “making money with blogging” or “doubling readership through SEO techniques”. In other words, maybe G.A. is not the best tool and maybe some of the articles here from the last year should rank higher or lower in readership...but it is what it is. I'm not here to win any SEO awards. I'm just here to drink soda and then write about it.

So, let's look at the list...

The #7 Most Relevant Soda is Good story was Coca Cola to Hydrate the Poor Children. Written at the end of July this year, it talked about the work of Simon Berry, who’s vision is to see Coca Cola using it’s world wide distribution muscle to send more water and medicine to the sick and poor children in Third World Countries.

The #6 Most Relevant story was Killer Coke: A Strike and a Protest. Also written in July, it talked up KillerCoke.org's plan to stage a strike in New York City to protest the unfair and violent working conditions of Coca Cola's bottling plant in Columbia, South America.

I learned about the strike on their website and shared what I could find. Oddly, despite all of the updates and photos on their website's home page ... there is NO discussion about the strike! NONE! I have to guess that only 6 people showed up. This does not, of course, take away from how important KillerCoke's message is...

The #5 most relevant Coke vs. Pepsi story was called Coke or Pepsi...Smart or Silly? dating back to early May of this year, this quick little entry pointed out 2 websites that also discuss the "Pepsi vs. Coke" debate...although from 2 very different perspectives. One reads like a Science Journal, the other like a High School Freshman's attempt at journalism. Much love to High School Freshmen and Journalists alike...

The #4 most relevant Soda Story on this blog was called History of Coke and Pepsi...and Google. This one was written in August of LAST year, so I'm glad to see that not only the entries from the last 2 months are being read! This hard hitting, bone crunching, in depth analysis of which soda (Coca Cola or Pepsi) has more Google listing under the heading 'History of...' almost won me a Pulitzer.

Not!

The #3 most relevant Soda Story on this blog was called RAW: Pepsi versus Pro Wrestling. Next to soda, Pro Wrestling is my true love, and this article talked about how the WWE has a show called 'Raw' and Pepsi has a soda called 'Raw'. Suffice to say that one outsells the other one hundred fold!

The #2 most relevant Soda is Good story for the last 12 months was ALSO a Pro Wrestling story! No, I do not market exclusively to Pro Wrestling Fans, but apparently Pro Wrestling fans like Soda as much as I do! The story is called Pepsi and Pro Wrestling - Perfect for a Punk, and it discusses current WWE Champion C.M. Punk and his love for Pepsi.

This story was written back in March, and Punk was not heavyweight champion yet. I cannot say that Pepsi endorses C.M. Punk or the WWE...but if not then they are getting some free publicity whenever Punk goes shirtless! (Big Pepsi Symbol tatoo on his shoulder!)

The #1 Most Relevant Coke vs. Pepsi: Soda is Good story for the last 12 months...according to the in depth analysis I took about 15 minutes to gather...is called Coca Cola Prices Going Up, Pepsi Prices Going Up Next? No, I was not able to think up a LONGER title so I went with that one. Apparently, this one really IS relevant, since it talks about:
1) Coca Cola
2) Pepsi
3) The Economy
4) Your Wallet.

So suffice to say that even if you are not a Pro Wrestling fan, you still found some relevant and important stories here to indulge yourself in.

You might also see, looking at the Top 7, that neither Coke nor Pepsi are the 'True Victory' in the war of the words, much less the war of the worlds. Both brands have plenty interesting information to offer.

2 quick honorable mentions:

1) obviously, as you add more content to a blog, the most read pages get spread out further. For the longest time, one of the top 5 most read stories was Coke Zero adds Big Boobs to their Latin Advertising. I am going to guess that the majority of the readers were males between the ages of 16 and 36. Ladies, you might be pleased to know that Coke and their Big Boobs fell out of the Top 7 last month.

2) One story that I thought was really clever was not my story at all...but rather some intimation on an essay I read and was really entertained by. The entry was called The Difference Between Pepsi and the Pope, and I want to thank author Denise Duhamel and her book Queen for a Day for the great essay!

There is a lot going on in the world, as far as Coke and Pepsi is concerned. Do feel free to leave your comments and share with me the Soda Stories you'd like to see top the list in the months to come!

11 comments:

Francis Deblauwe said...

For more fun and enlightenment, have a look at the Pepsi vs. Coca-Cola post on my Word Face-Off blog.

Defmall said...

Good Stuff, Francis!
Coke vs. Pepsi will always be the battle of the behemoths.

Anonymous said...

Thank you, that was extremely valuable and interesting...I will be back again to read more on this topic.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for sharing the link, but unfortunately it seems to be down... Does anybody have a mirror or another source? Please reply to my post if you do!

I would appreciate if a staff member here at sodaisgood.blogspot.com could post it.

Thanks,
Alex

Defmall said...

Hello?!?!? There are 7 "links" on this page, Alex. Which link are you referring to...?

Anonymous said...

Top web site, I hadn't come across sodaisgood.blogspot.com previously during my searches!
Carry on the great work!

Anonymous said...

Hello there,

I have a question for the webmaster/admin here at sodaisgood.blogspot.com.

Can I use part of the information from your blog post right above if I give a backlink back to your website?

Thanks,
Oliver

Defmall said...

Uh...sure, Oliver.
But what are you writing about that you would want to reference a post from 2008?

Share a backlink, and post the addy for what your writing here in teh comments. I'd love to see what you wrote.

Anonymous said...

Greetings,

This is a message for the webmaster/admin here at sodaisgood.blogspot.com.

May I use part of the information from this post above if I give a link back to your website?

Thanks,
James

Defmall said...

James...you and Oliver have eerily similar writing skills! You should get together and write your outdated paper together...to save you a lot of time and effort.

Anonymous said...

Hey - I am really happy to discover this. Good job!