Congratulations, You're the Biggest International Corporate Assholes

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Consumers International revealed the winners of its International Bad Product Awards this week, and recipients included Coca Cola, Kellog's, Mattel, and Takeda Pharmaceuticals. My two favorites are Coke and Takeda. Let's start with the drugs. In case you're not familiar, Takeda Pharmaceuticals manufactures the sleeping pill Rozerem. Most likely you've seen their televised advertisements, which feature a sleep-deprived dude chatting with Abe Lincoln and a beaver in his kitchen.



Apparently Takeda ran a different ad last year, which was accused of marketing the sleep aid to children. The ad says: “Rozerem would like to remind you that it’s back to school season.” Then you see pictures of chalk boards, school books, a school bus, and kids with backpacks. And the ad suggests asking “your doctor if Rozerem is right for you.” The tagline: ‘Back To School.’

There’s just one problem: Rozerem was never approved for kids. Accused of advertising that was "one step removed from dealing drugs near a school," Takeda pulled the ad after receiving a letter from the FDA warning them to "cease the dissemination of promotional materials for the drug featuring school children."

They also had to scrap an ad they had slated which featured a mother asking her elementary-aged children if they had brushed their teeth, washed their faces, and taken their pills. Back to the beaver, I guess.

Next up is Coca Cola, specifically for their marketing of Dasani bottled water. Bottled water is one of my favorite scams ever. By favorite, I mean most hated, and by scam, I mean you're a sucker if you buy and drink it. Dasani is way up there at the heights of said bottled water scaminess.

See, while they may market it as "pure," it's really just tap water. From local reservoirs. Another award went to drinks giant Coca-Cola for pushing marketing "into the realms of the ridiculous" in the United States and South America with its Dasani bottled water which is sourced from the same reservoirs as local tap water. Uh, yeah. Congratulations, Takeda and Coke. You're two of this years biggest corporate a-holes.

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