Saturday, June 06, 2009

The Big Contour

The change has been gradual over a couple months but now it's fairly complete and I defy you to find the old-style two-liter bottles of Coca-Cola anywhere. In my opinion, this is a bad thing.

The 'contour bottle' (tm) has long been a trademark of the Coca-Cola, for over ninety years as a matter of fact. Whether they ever trademarked it or not, the instantly recognizable package can not be mistaken for anything but Coke. They currently use it for all sizes of their plastic bottled containers - most recently as its two-liter size.

Coca-Cola claims it "offers a significant advantage for consumers beyond its classic good looks -- it is also easier to hold and easier to pour." I must disagree. Among the problems of this new bottle is the much smaller lip under the cap that makes it harder to grip than previously. The contour bottle is only easy to hold when one can grasp it with one hand, in my opinion, and that's just not possible with the two-liter version.

My main gripe with the new two-liter contour is that it is almost one to two inches taller than the old standard bottle used for soft drinks. This makes it impossible to store vertically in my fridge, and I imagine, most refrigerators. It's also too tall to fit in the fridge door.

It's my hope that Coke will go back to the standard bottle, or at least give consumers a choice. After all, they have corrected mistakes before. Remember New Coke? Bottom line, I love Coke, and I prefer Coke, but I don't mind Pepsi... and Pepsi will fit in my refrigerator door...


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5 comments:

  1. Heironymous12:41 PM

    So, your refrigerator is from like... 1980?

    Most newer models (post 1980) have adjustable shelves so you can fit non-standard sized items that one might find at Costco or Sam's Club.

    Hey, you aren't talking about one of those college dorm or under the desk sized refrigerators, are you?

    I used to have to fit the 2-liter bottles on their side in those.

    ;-)

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  2. Oh yeah, the shelves are adjustable, but to accommodate the new bottles is a terrible waste of space.

    And the door, where we normally stash two-liters, isn't adjustable.

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  3. Heironymous11:45 AM

    Coke in mass quantities is never a "waste" of space, sir!

    ..and, my refrigerator door (2006) has adjustable shelves and can fit that new COKE bottle a gallon of milk, and a half-gallon of OJ (not Simpson) very nicely.

    You better get with the times or you'll be left to drink your Pepsi with Justin Timberlake.

    Though in that old Super Bowl commercial he did come with a flat screen TV...

    Cheers!

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  4. Anonymous2:51 PM

    I just remodeled my kitchen and the Coke bottles just don’t fit. They don’t fit in my new GE French door refrigerator and they don’t fit in the Kraftmaid cabinet designed to hold 10 2L bottles. The new Dr. Pepper bottles don’t fit either.

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  5. Anonymous9:44 PM

    Raising the shelf a notch just to accommodate a coke bottle is ridiculous. Maybe if the milk, juice, etc. were coming in taller bottles too, but losing the space on the next shelf for that one product is asinine. And most people probably use the door. I might be jumping from Coke Zero to Pepsi One because of their boner move.

    ReplyDelete