NYC's Gross Ad Aims at Coke, Pepsi

New York City is taking aim at Coke and Pepsi in a truly disgusting way.

To drive home the point that the $73 billion U.S. soda industry is making New Yorkers fat, the city's health department posted a 30-second YouTube video of a guy pouring a can of globby fat in a glass and then drinking it as it runs down his face. (Watch the video here.)

"Drinking one can of soda a day can you make you 10 pounds fatter a year. Don't drink yourself fat," the public service ad on YouTube says.

Coca-Cola Co., PepsiCo Inc., and other companies are fighting perceptions that their products make people fat even as carbonated soda sales sag. Last year, sales rose 1 percent only after the companies raised prices, according to Beverage Digest. Volume actually fell 3 percent. In fact, volume declines from 2004 to 2008 wiped out gains from the prior seven years, the trade publication reports.

Coca-Cola has the biggest share of the carbonated soft-drink market with 43 percent, followed by PepsiCo's 31 percent and Dr. Pepper/Seven Up, Inc.'s 15 percent.

Understandably, the companies' trade group, the American Beverage Association, didn't find the New York health department's ad very funny. It noted that the soft-drink makers produce plenty of diet and zero-calorie drinks too. And there's no fat in Coke or Pepsi.

"If the goal is to reduce obesity among New Yorkers, then this public education campaign should be based in fact, not simply sensationalized video that inaccurately portrays our industry's products—products that are fat free," the group says in a statement.