Mecca Cola used the slogan, ‘Shake Your Conscience’ and Qibla asked the drinker to ‘Liberate your Taste.’ By 2004 all three colas — Zamzam, Mecca and Qibla — had begun to gain a significant share in the soft drink markets of the Gulf states. They then began to branch out in non-Arab Muslim countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia and Pakistan. Mecca Cola was launched in Pakistan in 2005.
All these cola brands did not have the marketing and distribution networks that multinational brands have. A spike in their sales was almost entirely dependent on the spike in anti-Americanism.
However, when relations between Saudi Arabia and US improved in 2004, the Saudi Supreme Court banned the sale of Zamzam Cola in the kingdom. It ruled that the soft drink could not use Islamic imagery and name for its brand. Then in 2005 Qibla Cola went belly-up and filed for bankruptcy. Sales of Mecca Cola too began to fizzle out especially when the UAE government banned it for ‘misusing’ Islamic symbolism and name of a sacred Muslim site. Only the Zamzam Cola was left standing.
All these cola brands did not have the marketing and distribution networks that multinational brands have. A spike in their sales was almost entirely dependent on the spike in anti-Americanism. Once this began to recede, so did the sales of these colas. Also, these brands completely alienated non-Muslim consumers and those Muslims whose enthusiasm for anti-Americanism got exhausted. So much so that Zamzam had to come up with a completely ‘secular’ campaign aimed at the youth to stay afloat and Mecca Cola was relaunched in 2012 with a more subtle message of ‘Be Different.’
Though all these brands capitalised on the backlash against American brands in the early 2000s, the nature of this backlash began to change shape from the late 2000s onward. Many Muslims began being equally repulsed by the violence unleashed by ‘Islamic’ militants. At times the ‘religious imagery’ of these brands began to be seen as endorsing ‘Islamic radicalism’.
Thus, from 2009 onwards, many stores in Europe stopped stocking these colas and their ‘Islamic appeal’ in most Muslim countries began to erode. In response to the challenge posed by these colas, Coke and Pepsi began to invest heavily in ‘Third World’ Muslim countries and explained this investment as an investment in the economic welfare of these countries.
For example, the October 9, 2015 issue of Dawn reported that Coke planned to invest 350 million dollars in Pakistan. The December 1, 2016 issue of Fortune magazine stated that Coke had invested 20 million dollars in the embattled Gaza strip.
On the other hand, a major Muslim charity claimed that it had not received the promised 10 percent proceeds from Qibla Cola. This greatly damaged the credibility of these colas. Marketing experts have concluded that the overt ideological makeup of these brands helped them make a brief mark during an upsurge in anti-Americanism. But they became nothing more than niche novelty brands which could not keep up with changing marketing and political trends.
Published in Dawn, EOS, September 17th, 2017