Chris Mooney is a freelance writer and the author of two books, 
I went and saw a movie the other night, and in the process also wound up seeing an ad that I'm sure many of you are familiar with. It's for Coca Cola, and it involves cute penguins and surprisingly benign polar bears getting together to enjoy fizzy beverages at the North Pole.
Now, the conceit of polar bears and penguins being buddies--rather than the former devouring the latter--is ridiculous enough. But let that pass; this is, after all, a cartoonish ad campaign obviously aimed at kids.
What troubles me more, though, is the blatant ignorance the ad both embodies, and spreads, about biogeography. At the risk of sounding pedantic, let's face it: Polar bears only inhabit the Arctic, while Emperor Penguins (which appears to be the species in the Coke ad) live in the Antarctic. And even if the Coke ad isn't using Emperor Penguins, but rather some other species, that still won't fly: Penguins only live in the Southern hemisphere, having probably originally evolved in that region. In nature, they would never cross paths with a polar bear.
So the Coke ad is evolutionarily and biogeographically impossible, but you can bet that the ad's creators weren't bothered by this one little bit. And that's the problem in my mind. If people knew more about evolution in this country, I suspect they would find this advertising campaign completely, laughably ridiculous. But they don't, and so Coke comes along and spreads nonsense to millions--many of whom, I suspect, don't suffer from any cognitive dissonance at all when they see penguins and polar bears chilling together.
Now, I know, I know--it's just an ad. Still, at the very least Coke passed up a teachable moment. And at the very worst, it helped foster still more ignorance about evolution.
Granted, I'm more than willing to be convinced that I'm getting too worked up over this.
P.S.: The flaws in the ad were originally pointed out to me by a friend, who knows who he is, and who gets credit for inspiring this blog posting.
Comments
Bearing in mind we had ads on tv with alien life forms and TV shows with a host of imaginary creatures, you are too worked up about the ad. But, you are right that people should be able to tell the difference, and many really can't.
Posted by: Bob | January 20, 2006 10:06 AM
This brings up an interesting question to my mind....if penguins were imported to the northern arctic waters, and conversely polar bears to the southern Antarctic...would both (or either) survive/thrive?
I'm guessing the penguins would do better. And I'm guessing neither one would enjoy a cold Coca Cola.
Posted by: Dave S.![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://scienceblogs.com/intersection/nav-commenters.gif)
|
January 20, 2006 10:10 AM
Based on what I know of the ad industry, Chris, it's quite possible one of the ad writers pointed out at a meeting, "hey, polar bears don't live in the antarctic," and was promptly told "who gives a $#%&" by the media producer.
Posted by: John Farrell![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://scienceblogs.com/intersection/nav-commenters.gif)
|
January 20, 2006 10:13 AM
I saw this add and noticed the same problem. Of course the Polar Bears are the current "spokes-species" for Coke and Emperor Penguins were the main protagonists in a recent popular documentary shown in those same movie theaters.
But this reminds me of a riddle:
Q. Regardless of how hungry an eskimo is, he will never eat a penguin. Why not?
A. Eskimos live only in the Northern Hemisphere and Penguins only in the Southern.
Posted by: Randy | January 20, 2006 10:14 AM
I think John is optimistic in thinking that anyone at the meeting actually knew that polar bears and pinguins do not coexist. There is a reason why much of movie fare contains eggregious errors about nature (plant and animal life seen on the screen has nothing to do with the supposed location of the action) - those people know nothing about it. At least they did not put Santa in the ad, too.
Posted by: coturnix![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://scienceblogs.com/intersection/nav-commenters.gif)
|
January 20, 2006 10:23 AM
Have to agree with this comment from Bob:
Bearing in mind we had ads on tv with alien life forms and TV shows with a host of imaginary creatures, you are too worked up about the ad.
Also, I'm not sure what this has to do with evolution. Penguins may have evolved in separate geographic regions, but there's nothing about evolution that required this. Or if there is, I guess I'm ignorant about it, too.
Posted by: P.M.Bryant | January 20, 2006 10:38 AM
Penguins do live in the N hemisphere, but just barely. In the E Pacific some live just N of the Equator around the Galapagos Is.
Posted by: anon | January 20, 2006 10:38 AM
"And at the very worst, it helped foster still more ignorance about evolution."
In my opinion, it fosters ignorance more generally about "empirical reality," which is the modus operendi of fundamentalism everywhere. Getting worked up about it may not help, but it still needs to be exposed.
Posted by: dogscratcher | January 20, 2006 10:55 AM
The Coke ad bothered me too for the same reason. I don't know that I regarded it as passing up a teachable moment. It ranks pretty low on the violations of laws of chemistry, physics and biology that populate movies every day.
And I think I learned about the polar bears only in the Arctic/ penguins only in the Antarctic thing from an Encyclopedia Brown mystery, which I read long before I was really aware of evolution.
Posted by: Sanjiv Sarwate | January 20, 2006 10:55 AM
I have no idea how well educated the Coca Cola ad folks are, and I don't expect them to toe the line on species distribution, but I do find it interesting that this kind of thing is a relatively recent phenomenon. Time was not so long ago that popular culture had more respect for such things as which pole is which.
Tagged onto the U.S. edition of the DVD of "March of the Penguins" is a classic Merrie Melodies cartoon "Eight-Ball Bunny," in which hapless Bugs tries to take an out-of-work showbiz penguin home to the South Pole -- not the North.
(It's also the one in which a haggard Bogart makes several non-sequitur appearance asking if Bugs can spare a dime for an American down on his luck -- hilarious.)
I could be wrong, but growing up I don't remember too many examples of ad campaigns getting the habitats of polar bears and penguins confused, yet now we do. I think Chris is right; it is a cause for concern. Not too much, mind you, but worrying nonetheless.
Posted by: James Hrynyshyn | January 20, 2006 10:55 AM
A number of years ago, Gary Larson committed the sin of mixing polar bears and penguins in one of his Far Side cartoons. And boy did he hear about it from his fans (mostly wacky scientist-types who tape Far Side cartoons to their lab doors) who wrote him to make *sure* that he knew that polar bears and penguins never cross paths in the wild...
Posted by: caerbannog | January 20, 2006 11:03 AM
But that is precisely why they can get along and have a Coke. They don' have an established predator-prey relationship.
Not much worse than shooting a shotgun 58 times without reloading, but at least everyone knows that's not realistic.
Posted by: Bulman | January 20, 2006 11:28 AM
Hey, its not *our* fault that the CGI advertisers don't have any Great Awks to model which would be in the right hemisphere.
oh, waitaminute...nevermind. :)
Posted by: Joe Shelby | January 20, 2006 11:59 AM
Coke is hardly the first to make that error:
Gary Larson's offensive Far Side
Posted by: Alex | January 20, 2006 12:05 PM
And boy did he hear about it from his fans (mostly wacky scientist-types who tape Far Side cartoons to their lab doors) who wrote him to make *sure* that he knew that polar bears and penguins never cross paths in the wild...
I never did anything like that ...
OK, maybe I did have my door covered with Larson cartoons...and maybe I did write concerning the fact that only the female mosquito sucks our blood (despite his missleading cartoon to the contrary)...but never that!
Posted by: Dave S.![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://scienceblogs.com/intersection/nav-commenters.gif)
|
January 20, 2006 12:29 PM
Penguins don't live in the Northern Hemisphere? I've seen literally dozens in the northern hemisphere. Sure they were all in zoos and aquaria, but the point is there's no evolutionary law prohibiting polar bears and penguins from occupying the same space. Polar bears and penguins picking up Coke bottles and taking a drink - now thats more of a puzzle.
Posted by: em | January 20, 2006 1:08 PM
When my wife and I saw the ad for the first time, I promptly pointed out the error to her. She laughed, saying "You're the only one I know who would know that." And she's probably right, which makes the error the more egregious in my view. If everybody knew the association was wrong, then we could pass it off as poetic license, even in an ad. But when probably 95% of the population thinks the two species populate any place cold, the error is bad, very bad. IMHO.
Keanus
Posted by: Keanus | January 20, 2006 1:48 PM
Coincidentally, I was just reading about penguins last night in Tony Soper's book Antarctica: A Guide to the Wildlife. He mentions that three species of penguins were unsuccefully introduced to the Lofoten Islands off of Norway from 1936-1938. The last one was seen in 1954. The penguins were apparently unable to reproduce because they didn't have an adequate population density. And some penguins "suffered at the hands of locals who regarded them as bogeymen."
Soper also notes that similar-looking auks fill the same niche in the north, which he calls "a classic example of convergent evolution." That may be so, but everyone knows that auks drink Pepsi.
Yeah, biogeographical ignorance sucks, but I'm more concerned about seeing the critters my daughter loves so much pushing all that sugar and caffeine.
I also think the ad execs are smart enough to know that people will be talking about their "mistake" after seeing the ad -- gets them a little extra mileage for their $.
Posted by: Mike Kelly | January 20, 2006 2:33 PM
My daughter has a board book that features a variety of arctic mammals: beluga whales, narwhals, polar bears, seals, walruses, puffins, etc. One day I was pointed out and naming all the animals for her, when I noticed PENGUINS in one drawing. I was very distressed about it (almost as much as I am by Dr. Seuss's Mr. Brown Can Moo, in which thunder and lightning make different sounds--lightning apparently goes "splat"), and said something to my mother-in-law, who was visiting at the time. She thought I was totally nuts. Is it really so much to ask that such a basic thing be represented accurately? Yes, it's just a children's book, but at the same time, she's learning all sort of things from her books. I would like what she learns to be "empirically realistic", unless the source is obviously fantastical. I guess children's book illustrators and editors are as likely to be ignorant of these things as TV advertisement producers.
Posted by: Mrs. Coulter | January 20, 2006 3:19 PM
It would have been even a better commercial if one of the penguins said to the polar bear, "what are you doing in the Antarctic?" and the bear replied, "Because of human-caused global warming the arctic ice is melting and I risk drowning during 60 mile open ocean swims."
And then the penguin just gulped his Coke awkwardly.
Posted by: cm | January 20, 2006 4:59 PM
There was a TV cartoon series called Pengu years back (5-min long episopes). Our hero frolicked with polar bears and Inuit in the Arctic. The movie Madagascar (this I didn't see) had the lemurs led by a king. Lemur's a matriarchal. And if I recall right, one of Feynman's books recounted how, as a child, he asserted to a friend that dinosaurs did not live alongside humans. Feynman was proven wrong by an adult who, using some cartoon as evidence, explained that indeed they did.
How much fun must we sacrifice for facts? How many facts must we sacrifice for fun?
Posted by: Daniel Collins | January 20, 2006 6:45 PM
cm: Brilliant! :-)
Posted by: Will McKenna | January 20, 2006 6:55 PM
Of course, for a little bit of fun, you could point out that penguins used to live in the Northern Hemisphere...but that depends upon what sort. The word "penguin" is actually a corruption of the French word for the great auk, which did live in the Northern Hemisphere: apparently, when the completely unrelated southern birds were first described, they were compared to the great auks (which, at that time, were well on their way to extinctions) and the name stuck.
Either way, though, I agree with you, but trying to convince know-nothing ad reps to be scientifically accurate only wastes your time and annoys the pig. I literally work right above one of the biggest advertising firms in my city, and I can state for the record that it's nothing but a workfare program for otherwise unemployable advertising majors from Southern Methodist University: you could gather the entire lot and still not get enough brain cells that weren't burned out on coke binges to power a decent-sized cricket, and they're the sort that keep putting humans and dinosaurs together because they don't know any better. After all, they saw humans and dinosaurs together in The Flintstones, so it must have happened in real life, right?
Posted by: Paul Riddell | January 20, 2006 9:14 PM
All right, I have a Far Side mug...and I used to put cartoons on the office door. So sue me!
Posted by: coturnix![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://scienceblogs.com/intersection/nav-commenters.gif)
|
January 20, 2006 9:44 PM
Versions of the polar bear and penguin ads have been around for years, but they just keep getting bigger. I've always poked the person next to me and pointed out the error. At least they are employing CGI animals and not real ones, like the chimps in the CareerBuilder ads. Those young chimps get dumped a few years later. Some end up in really bad circumstances. A little biogeographical nonsense is better than animal abuse.
Posted by: Gerry L | January 21, 2006 12:05 AM
I saw that ad in the theater this week, too. I blubbered and flustered about the reality of the situation. I think the main problem with these inaccuracies is that moving pictures are the primary way that some people learn things today. If everyone knew that penguins and polar bears were on opposite faces of the globe, there wouldn't be a problem. Imagine the elementary school students who will get in arguments over this. The young budding nerds will have to spend time arguing over the theater-educated variety over where the two species live. Still, might be good training for a future in debunking myths...
Posted by: Inoculated Mind![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://scienceblogs.com/intersection/nav-commenters.gif)
|
January 21, 2006 5:27 AM
Someone speculated in the comments about whether the emperor penguins could survive in the northern hemisphere. I'd say no, because the reason they make it in the south is that there are no predators in their breeding grounds. Polar bears would gobble up the chicks in no time, and there'd be no penguins.
Posted by: Dave Munger | January 21, 2006 8:49 AM
Coca Cola should go back to more realistic advertising, like when they featured the jolly olf elf in their ads. What's next? Debates on whether Superman could beat Mighty Mouse in a fair fight?
Posted by: Randy MacDonald | January 21, 2006 1:46 PM
Regarding penguin predators: a LiveJournal friend of mine, a young single mother in Brooklyn, recently published the following rant in her journal: "I just saw March of the Penguins and flipped out - DID YOU KNOW LEOPARD SEALS EAT PENGUINS?! WTF. No wonder people club your babies you assholes." I assumed when I read this that commercial sealing would be unprofitable in the Antarctic because of transportation costs, but I was wrong; sealers were early explorers of Antarctica, and nearly wiped out a species or two before Antarctic seals were put under the protection of international law.
Posted by: Doug Brian | January 21, 2006 6:00 PM
Arctic, Anctartic. Geez, what a pedant you are, Chris. Same diff, right? Too fucking cold to party, whatever.
Posted by: SqueakyRat | January 21, 2006 10:38 PM
There's an additional irony in the juxtaposition of polar bears and penguins in a polar landscape, that seems to be missed in the post and comments. In fact a couple of comments assert that biogeography has little to do with evolution. Ah, but biogeography has always been one of the supporting lines of evidence for evolution, that can be explained in a non-technical way: species live near where they evolved, with closely-related species as neighbors. A designer of penguins probably would have scattered them around in all similar chilly environments. Evolution may be difficult to understand, but more rewarding than nonsense commercials; keep seeing the humor and teaching!
Posted by: BobGo | January 22, 2006 7:35 AM
Paul,
Just a slight correction on your Northern Hemisphere penguin comment. "Penguin" is actually Welsh. "Pen gwyn" means "white head" in Welsh. Apparently, auks had white heads in winter.
Posted by: Jim Ruwaldt | January 23, 2006 2:26 PM
You're overlooking another interpretation of the Coke ad which might appease your sensibilities. By having animals from both poles enjoying a Coke, they were making a statement akin to Coke's infamous "Teach the World to Sing" campaign. Perhaps, if that was the intended message, having the bears arrive on a boat or something might have helped remove the cohabitation implication, but go figure.
Posted by: Curt Rozeboom | January 23, 2006 4:01 PM
I just re-watched the ad. The song being played was singing about the North Pole, implying that they were hanging out on the North pole, which, as I might ad, has no land mass. Ok, so it could be Alaska or Siberia. But oh well...
Posted by: Inoculated Mind![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://scienceblogs.com/intersection/nav-commenters.gif)
|
January 23, 2006 11:57 PM
little too worked up over this one. sure i saw the commercial. sure i turned to my girlfriend and said "hehe, thats funny, and cute, cuz penguins and polar bears live on opposite poles" -- and then i went on with my life.
Really you have to ask yourself, what's more realistic? Penguins meeting polar bears, or penguins and polar bears drinking coca-cola? We don't worry that our elementary school kids are going to think that bears and penguins like to drink coca-cola in real life. And we don't expect them to know the native habitats of animals innately. That's why we teach them. So teach the kids. Don't expect TV to do it for you.
Posted by: kevin | January 25, 2006 1:27 PM
I have only one thing to say:
"Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!"
(Listens for sounds of heads exploding.)
Posted by: DrNathaniel | January 25, 2006 3:39 PM
Wait a minute... You mean I shouldn't be getting biogeographical information from commercials?? When did this happen? I thought the obvious giveaway that this wasn't realistic was when the animals drank Coke. Wake up stupid. Coca Cola is trying to sell a product, not educate people about animal habitats and geography. Thanks for wasting my time.
Posted by: Jim | February 1, 2006 12:42 PM
Just stumbled on this post and HAD to share this PATHETIC email I got from Coke when I asked this very question....
------
Thank you for contacting The Coca-Cola Company. We appreciate the opportunity to respond.
The theme for our holiday marketing campaign is "Give. Live. Love. Coke." Part of the new ad's message is that Coca-Cola is about sharing and bringing everyone together for the holidays, no matter how far apart they may normally live. In the animated world of the Coca-Cola Polar Bears, penguins and bears can peacefully co-exist and share a Coke.
Consumer feedback is important to us, so please feel free to contact us again whenever you have additional comments to share.
Jeffrey
Industry & Consumer Affairs
The Coca-Cola Company
[THREAD ID:1-EJ5X2D]
-----Original Message-----
From: XXXXX
Sent: 11/22/2005 09:50:29 PM
To: "Coca-Cola Support"
Subject: Coca-Cola Web Form
In your commercial, why are there penguins and polar bears in the same habitat? They live on opposite ends of the planet. It makes you look rather uninformed.
Posted by: mbad | January 2, 2007 3:08 PM