Farewell to Diet Coke

Doctors can photograph the inside your digestive system with tiny cameras. As we hovered over photographs of my lesions, the doctor demanded that I give up Diet Coke - immediately.

If you are not addicted to diet coke, you may not understand this blog. Some of you might think this is about caffeine, but that’s only because you fundamentally misunderstand the diet coke phenomenon. This is not about kicking a soda addiction; this is about quitting a lifestyle brand.

When I was 9 years old Coca-Cola ran one of the greatest commercials of all time, “I’d like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony”. The following year the Equal Rights Amendment was introduced, and shortly after that tennis legend Billie Jean King beat Bobby Riggs in the “battle of the sexes”. During these years the Mary Tyler Moore show was breaking ground by portraying a single professional independent woman. Mary also broke ground by discreetly mentioning her use of birth control and alluding to a sex life. The Coca-Cola brand in my adolescence represented world peace and equality and hipness and the kind of momentum that was truly changing the world.

In high school I began drinking Tab because I wanted to both have Coke and be thin. I was in college when Diet Coke emerged with its slogan “Just for the Taste of It”, which strategically downplayed the dieting angle of Diet Coke. Celebrities like Elton John helped position Diet Coke as a lifestyle beverage, not simply a low calorie option. By the time I finished college Diet Coke was my touchstone. It seemed to help me concentrate, it kept me brave when I felt alone, it made me sharp when I had to perform. At first I drank it in secret each morning, but eventually it became a commonly accepted morning beverage. It’s not that I drank a lot of soda, it’s that I always had a soda nearby. Even holding a diet coke bottle in my hand would calm my nerves.

I remember the major milestones of my life with Diet Coke as my constant companion. In college while my girlfriends took cigarette breaks I took Diet Coke breaks. After work when I went jogging with my girlfriend around San Francisco’s marina green, we rewarded ourselves with a Diet Coke on the walk home. On late nights when we were planning marches and rallies I would sit with my Diet Coke in the Women’s Building and rewrite phone bank scripts or type up press releases. In 1992, the so-called “year of the woman”, I crisscrossed the state of California drumming up grassroots support for women candidates, always with a Diet Coke in the cup holder.

I looked with envy at the coffee crowd. Coffee shops are the best, with their newspapers in many languages and intellectuals typing their novels on laptops. Every Hollywood star is photographed carrying a Starbucks cup down the street - in fact I ran into Sarah Jessica Parker at the Starbucks in Greenwich Village a few years ago. You’ll never find a Diet Coke for sale at Starbucks because the coffee brand and the Diet Coke brand represent two different kind of people. Coffee people are always the in-crowd, whether “in” is listening to alternative musicians or eating organically grown food. Diet Coke people are the modern martini lunch crowd, only we are working too hard to actually have alcohol mid-day. We have stressful jobs and are juggling kids and work and making our public schools progressive.

We are too smart for diet coke, but here we are. If it was simply a matter of breaking up with the Coca-Cola Company I could have switched to tap water years ago. Coca-Cola spokesperson Diana Garza told ABC News last year in a response to concerns about the health risks of Diet Coke, “Great taste. No calories. Wholesome ingredients. How could you drink too much?”

I didn’t drink Diet Coke all these years because of people like Diana Garza. Obviously Diet Coke is a dubious health choice, and pushing this beverage as a healthy option (such as Diet Coke with vitamins) can only be harmful to the world. No doubt we ought to topple Coke as the world’s drink of choice and replace it with bottles of clean water. No good can come from Coke’s expansion of the power drink market, especially into poor communities. I sincerely hope my kids don’t grow up to be regular soda drinkers.

I drank Diet Coke because I was addicted to not just the taste but to what the taste symbolized for me. It seemed to make me my best in a world where I have always had to be earlier, more prepared, sharper, faster, super creative and maniacally motivated to live my own version of the Mary Tyler Moore dream.

Breaking up with a brand is hard to do. That’s why building a brand is a precious investment. Branding is more than an advertisement or a slogan. It’s a personal connection with the public, it is your reputation. A good brand can defy logic, it can leapfrog whims and trends. It is patient, honest, and unafraid.

Farewell to Diet Coke. We are broken up for good.

I am old enough to know the inside of farewells. The caffeine headache has already passed but isn’t it the wasteland of the argument’s aftermath that is the worst?

Farewell, Diet Coke. I am free. I always deserved better than you.